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The loss of language, the loss of meaning
Flowing lines of script spread across walls alongside the stairs go up three floors in the latest architectural work by Parastou Forouhar at the Museum for Islamic Art for its permanent exhibition. Parastou Forouhar, an Iranian-German contemporary artist, has developed this body of work for the last thirty years across Europe. At first glance, the writing resembles Persian calligraphy but what’s most fascinating about this written script is, that it is not readable at all.
"The letters are strung together, suggesting a script, a body, but they are not writing in the conventional sense. It is an illegible script and language. It resembles the rhythm and melody of calligraphy, the tradition that resonates, but at the same time the loss of language, the loss of meaning" that’s how the artist describes the work, "and it is in this ambivalence - between being freed from the burden of meaning and gaining something as melody and another kind (way) of perception - that this work is situated."
Pergamon Museum is set to open its doors once more to the public starting in June, 2027 after 14 years of renovation. The new concept of the Museum for Islamic Art situates contemporary artistic positions alongside historical objects on a permanent basis. Parastou Forouhar is one of 47 contemporary voices in the new permanent exhibition. Director of the museum, Prof. Dr. Stefan Weber, writes in the new exhibition concept that, ‘we are integrating contemporary artists and their works as points of reflection that, enter into a dialogue with the aesthetics, objects and themes of the collection, thus opening up new perspectives. The contemporary positions give people a voice and agency and remind visitors that Islamicate cultures are present and creative.’
Working in an in-between space
A museum stairwell is a space of movement, connecting different floors, exhibitions and experiences. Creating an artwork spanning three floors, also comes with its challenges. For Parastou this makes the process open to spontaneity and improvisation, allowing the work to develop in dialogue with its surroundings.
“Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and then it feels out the space and changes it with very few strokes. The work needs the architecture, needs it as a surface, but constantly negates the laws of this architecture.”
Parastou considers the stairwell as a space in transition where visitors would pass through on their way elsewhere. She embraces this in-between quality, allowing her work to accompany people as they move through the building, while also interrupting their familiar paths.
“I find it quite lovely, that somehow the work influences their walking, accompany them, but also interrupt them and that is something new for me.”
The artist behind the artwork
Born in Tehran in 1962, Forouhar has lived and worked in Germany since 1991. Her practice spans installations, drawings, photographs and digital works, exploring questions of political power, repression, gender and cultural memory. Personal experiences of political violence and exile inform her work, which resists easy interpretations and asks viewers to look beyond appearances.
In Written Room, she explains, “this work has a lot to do with my engagement with migration.” She transforms Persian letters into ornamental forms and fragments that do not convey a coherent, readable text. The writing remains visually present, but its familiar function is disrupted. Forouhar describes the work as both a way of holding on to the culture of her mother tongue and a way of resisting its embrace.
For almost 30 years, Parastou Forouhar has been creating this artwork in different countries across the world, from the USA and Australia to South Korea and across Europe.
“I grew up with calligraphy. When you grow up in Iran, you see these beautiful scripts everywhere. This work, too, is rooted in calligraphy, but has also freed itself from it, because calligraphy very often in Iran, but also in all cultures, serves to write more beautifully a text that is very important, such as a sacred text or a very significant text of ancient literature.”
Forouhar describes this shift as a liberation from the historical and cultural significance traditionally carried by calligraphy. “Here, calligraphy for its own sake means nothing at all. It is freed from this burden of history and thereby opens up to other perceptions, which no longer have anything to do with reading.”
In conversation with Parastou Forouhar
Parastou Forouhar explains the ideas behind Written Room and her relationship with the Persian language.
Credits
Video by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum for Islamic Art / F. Rizvi
Manuscript - Museum for Islamic Art & Walters Art Museum
Music by Nikita Kondrashev from Pixabay
Iran video clips by Mostafa Meraji from Pixabay
Experiencing the Written Room
For visitors familiar with the Persian script, the artist imagines a moment of curiosity succeeded by confusion, as they try to decipher the artwork.
Parastou explains that the letters in the artwork, “are the letters of my mother tongue, Farsi. The letters used in this artwork are the same as found in many languages including in the Arabic language, in Kurdish, Dari, or languages in other regions of West Asia and perhaps also North Africa.
When people - I have found from experience - walk past and see the work, many, even those who can read Arabic or Farsi, stop and try to read it. And that is exactly the point. A temptation that does not succeed in the conventional way. It opens up space for other perceptions, and very often for memory, belonging, which does not take its the normal path.”
Parastou Forouhar's artwork spread across three floors of the stairwell will accompany the visitors on their visit to the Pergamon Museum from June, 2027.
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