History

The art of sweeping statements

As in the Shahrzad collective’s preceding projects, matters of geopolitical aesthetics are explored through idiosyncratic linkages of metonymy and allegory, textual poetics and iconic image, blunt content and overbearing design.

Now, with their newest publication, the focus is on the mise-en-scène of contemporary historiography in today’s Euroamerica. In the words of the collective: “These days, it seems that even in those prosperous, provincial environs we call the West, history is becoming a more complex affair than the Eurocentric teleology of ‘how we ended up the joyous pinnacle of civilization, happy as pigs in shit.’ History, along with other officious narratives, is now widely consumed with the same deference as a soap opera or a fashion magazine. And yet, throughout this apparent free-for-all, History as we know it persists.”

With this sourcebook at hand, Shahrzad presents its own commentary on the mysteriously tenacious aura of institutionalized histories, drawing on baroque ideology, discourse theory, botanics, the US top ten, art book traditions and more.

Published and edited by Shahrzad (Shirana Shahbazi, Manuel Krebs, Tirdad Zolghadr) in collaboration with Emily Cohn-Miller.

Awarded in the competition “The most beautiful Swiss books 2005.”