Sedāyam
Short Film - 2025
Video and Edit by Alexander Ekholm
Sound Design by Lumanzin with extract from Kimia Koochakzade's compositions
The work asks what it means to belong when belonging has always been conditional.
a dedication to the people of Iran, with saffron on their tongues and centuries on their backs, they speak in verse - each step a poem, each breath a chant.
I live in the in-between worlds; too much for here, too I do not know home as a physical place, but as a fractured one. Language left my mouth before I could hold it. Heritage clings to me like soil under nails; beautiful, dirty, sacred. In Britain, I perform comfortably. In Farsi, I mourn fluency.
The work imposed the question of belonging and the duality of my nationality. Running away from the strain of the tradition. Battling the gender identity of my being. Finding the balance of masculinity and femininity within. Refugging my religion as a queer body.
The Farsi song Man Haminam by Marjan is a feminist anthem, resistant, defiant. Water holds through the work as life, movement, and memory, invoking Anahita, Persian Goddess of water and fertility. The High Priestess chants, a powerful symbol of intuition and feminine divinity. Saffron holds for purity and light. A silver and gold tray holds the duality of sun and moon, while Princess Ghajar carries the symbol of beauty in masculinity and femininity. For Persians honey (asal) signifies a sweet and prosperous future.
IIts a ritual of survival stitched from hyphenated identities. Refugia becomes the act of remembrance. Of feeding my mother tongue to strangers. Of performing grief in public. Of growing roots in hostile ground.
