Colonial Trophies
Past Control: Natural Trophies
Following the idea of exploration and conquest, as well as to preserve the greatness of the empire in the distant future, form the late seventeenth century onwards, the British began collecting plants and trees. The plan covered a wide area, including the three continents of Asia, Africa and Oceania. These plants and trees were planted in The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and kept in its vast archives.
From the nineteenth century onwards, the lands of these colonies or quasi-colonies (Southern regions of Iran) were like accessible laboratories for technical and scientific specialists. They sought to direct nature - in their own interpretation - from an early chaos to a kind of rational order (archive) and to regulate the confusing variety of nature before them. With this (archival) view, nature was expanded in an endless classification so that these scientists (botanists) could classify them and most importantly, give a huge arsenal of species to the more scientific world ahead. An arsenal as a gift that originated from the modern mindset of exploration and conquest. But from our point of view today, this nature is understood as historical; the nature that is inextricably linked to history and politics (archive-power).
The images in this section are against collection, classification and archiving.
Future of the Past: Artificial Trophies
The second part of the project, a continuation of the first part, is reminiscent of the Western (mostly British) tradition of collecting and archiving tools among skilled local (often retired) oil workers in Southwestern Iran. A habit that has long since found its way into at least part of the small community of local Southern workers. In a sense, these tools are the remnants of the future that oil explorers promised. Collecting these tools for skilled local workers is a sign of power. Each of these tools-objects used to be part of a whole that played a significant role in the construction of an artificial or secondary nature (the construction of a modern society independent of nature). Collectors of these tools consider themselves part of the development of the industry in the distant past. However it goes without saying that these tools-objects show us a small part of the large structure that has been engaged in the engineering of society and nature in Southern Iran.
