Planetarium, 2020 

Medium: video 45’’, carton paper, matches

Match sticks pile onto a dark brown canvas, muffled sounds pipe, the matches spread out, noises amplify. The screen blackouts, a loud sound vibrates, the central match pile ignites— blackout, another heap burns, the sweltering sound lingers. The picture dims. The extinguished matches rest; one more blackout, just patches of ashes remain, blowing in the wind.

"At times, years of war and flames unite us to the country’s devastation, that there is no gap between fiction and reality, construction and destruction.    These disappointments are not isolated to the war in Afghanistan, yet to the current events throughout the world." — Ahmad Reshad

Ahmad Reshad’s video insulation, “Planétarium,” can be interpreted as the four-decade story of his homeland, Afghanistan—fringe indigenous actors, self-seeking foreign powers, contradictory doctrines, clandestine strategies, all scattered onto the terrain, eventually ignited by natives and outside forces.

The work invites one to gaze onto the nation’s sprawling, close to half-century tormenting story, leaving one to ponder what spiteful ruse will be implanted next and when will this unfortunate tinderbox ignite again.

Text: afghanmagazine.com