Babak Salari

Babak in action

We had a fantastic visit by photographer Babak Salari at the weekend.  On Saturday he showed some of his photographs on the big screen at the Edge, and gave a very inspiring talk alongside.  It was great to see work with such strong political content and much lively debate was sparked.  Babak showed two series of photographs, portraits of gay and transvestite Cubans and of Afghani people displaced by thirty years of war.  The work is very powerful, I feel, partly because the images are almost matter of fact and you know you are looking at something real.  Babak told stories of meeting a mother who was forced to sell a child to prevent her other children from starving, and of fifty year olds who turned out to be thirty.  Rhonda Wilson spoke at the end, obviously moved by the work, and talked passionately about the need for political content in art, and the current dearth of politically motivated artwork on the scene.  I have to say I heartily agree, we’ve been in a long-lasting bubble of apolitical art, where it seems that artists egos and bank balances seem of more importance than commenting, reflecting and, hopefullly, influencing the cultural and social landscape.  A lot of the art I see these days is quite nice, and often well presented, but doesn’t really say a lot, often clever, rarely intelligent.  I always feel that experiencing a genuine piece of art you come away from it changed in some way.  Be honest, when did that last happen to you?  Anyway, I digress, but would like to thank Rhonda for her always valuable input to the evening and urge you all to check out the wonderful Rhubarb festival of the image this weekend.  We’d also like to thank Babak hugely for taking the time to come and visit with us, I certainly felt changed by seeing his incredibly moving images and look forward to more Babak in the future.  We had a great time and whizzed him all over Brum in the 48 hours he spent with us, taking in the Obamas People exhibition, seeing Vanley Burkes images and giving him the full ‘curry and chips’ tour of Brum.

We also want to thank the audience for coming along at such short notice (we only had a week’s warning of Babak’s visit). As usual the audience was rather more ‘lively’, shall we say than one might expect at an artist’s talk and included the usual hugely diverse group ranging from 1 year old to 70, and including our only canine member Ed!

For those of you ‘in the know’, don’t forget Happy Artist social club at the Edge this Friday…