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Nonspheres IV - analog video, Kabul / Berlin, 2006-7 'Verde que te quiero Verde' is the video component of the installation Nonspheres IV, my first solo exhibition, at Program Berlin, curated by Carson Chan and Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga in 2007. This final version of the video work juxtaposes two related videos — 'Wazir Akbar Khan' (analog video, duration: 3' 58", Kabul, Afghanistan 2006) and 'Teufelsburg' (analog video, duration: 2'49", Berlin, Germany 2006) — both previously exhibited separately at Encounters, a group exhibition curated by Femke Lutgerink at Staadgallerij Heerlen, NL, 2007. 'Wazir Akbar Khan' stems from an urban intervention in Kabul. It was the outcome of a workshop for public art I provided for local Afghan art student-members of the Center for Contemporary Art of Afghanistan (CCAA). The project was commissioned by Professor Rahraw Omarzad, the director of the CCAA, and by the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture of MIT (camerawork was made in collaboration with photographer Massoud Hosseini). 'Teufelsburg' was my first work while based in Berlin from 2006-2020. Filmed right after returning from Afghanistan, the video was produced during the late summer, and then during the winter of 2006. Teufelsberg (or Devil's hill) is in west Berlin, is made of landfill from the ruins of WW2, later becoming a now well-known, abandoned NATO Secret Telecommunications Station. The video is presented in Nonspheres IV as an alpha channel staged on a green screen mural painted on the walls of Program. The video aimed at reminding the web of remnants and injustices of the Cold War, no less about the continuing struggles that Afghanistan continues to endure.
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