(1) [Tag-e Bustan, Kermanshah] 1840 - 1869

Curator: This intriguing photographic print captures a relief carving and dates from between 1840 and 1869. The location given is Tag-e Bustan in Kermanshah. Editor: My first impression is one of dynamic movement, almost frenetic. The low relief and sepia tone create a sense of age and faded grandeur, like a memory struggling to remain vivid. Curator: Precisely. The carving is most likely of Sasanian origin. The medium here interests me; we're looking at a photograph of a carving, meaning there were several steps in production and consumption involved here, unlike viewing the original work in situ. We're far removed from the object. Editor: It feels like a copy of a copy, which somehow adds to the romance. This depiction of a royal hunt, so stylized, triggers all sorts of narratives in my mind: of power, mortality, the sheer energy of the chase… Even frozen in stone, these animals seem to be bursting forth. Curator: Indeed, notice how the elephants are presented, or even the boats and the human figures! It reveals how ancient cultures conceived of power. Royal hunts, which were depicted on reliefs like this, could be seen as a display of command, not just over the animal kingdom, but perhaps over their human subjects as well, through labor extracted in producing the image itself, and in arranging the spectacle it documents. Editor: It does prompt me to reflect on how history gets mediated and interpreted, doesn't it? Someone decided this carving, this specific scene, was worth documenting and sharing. Curator: Someone invested in transporting it to us. In short, this work operates in layers. The depicted hunting scene, the labour involved in the original carving, then this photographic iteration, it is the image of a historical scene filtered through so many processes and so much production to come down to this modern form of its previous lives. Editor: It's strange; while contemplating that layering of manufacture, what emerges most vividly for me is the almost palpable sense of wildness in it. All those tusked boars and majestic elephants evoke something untamed and eternal— despite the methods that created it. Curator: A suitable paradox, given the power dynamics embedded in the original production and display. Editor: It makes you think, doesn’t it? Curator: Indubitably.