Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

?Thank You For Coming? strives to explore social identities and human behavior by analyzing the aesthetics of social activities which, in themselves, may be regarded as banal in everyday life. In this project, I am working with the idea of a social gathering, within the context of a celebration, where individuals gather in a certain manner, and form a structure that is identical to the social structure we live in. Within these parameters I am working with a visual vocabulary that is derived from the imagery of little, everyday gestures, to form various narratives of an event, and to build a larger superstructure of my work. For this project, I worked in collaboration with a person from a different background to set-up a situation that treads the thin line between fiction and reality. He brought in his relatives, friends and acquaintances, none of whom I knew and all of whom were alien to me, for a celebration, the name or title, occasion and purpose of which is never revealed.I accorded my contact who had gathered these people together the role of an architect who led much of the direction of what was being done by the gathered people and how it was being done. The end result of this project was unexpected; initially I wanted to put a social gathering together to study the interaction between individuals. Probably by positioning myself with camera I broke the structure, I wanted to build. What appeared on camera is a group of aliens, together, who were even unknown to each other.

Basir Mahmood (b. 1985 Lahore, Pakistan) studied in Lahore at the Beaconhouse National University, and received a yearlong fellowship from Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, in 2011. In order to engage with situations around him, he ponders upon embedded social and historical terrains of the ordinary, as well as his personal milieu. Using video, film or photograph, Mahmood weaves various threads of thoughts, findings and insights into poetic sequences and various forms of narratives. Since 2011, his works has been widely shown, including: The Garden of Eden, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012; III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Russia, 2012; Inaugural Show, Broad Museum, Michigan State University, 2012; Asia Pacific Triennial (APT 7) at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2012; and Sharjah Biennial 11. (2013). Besides being part of various private collections, Mahmood?s video works were acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery Collection in Brisbane, Australia.