Underwater Eruptions | Part Two: Some Concepts on Freedom
Poster Designed by Amirali Ghasemi
Artist
Curator
‘Some Concepts on Freedom’ is part of a larger series that employs an anti-archival approach to explore the concept through various media. Developed both before in Iran & during my residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, these works focus on the subject of Iran. The series posits that freedom is achievable only within our perception, ultimately arguing that its inherent relativity across space & time makes it deceptive & unattainable.
Some Parts from this ongoing series by Sin Seeni are shown at Apartment Project Berlin in March 2026:
Alef-Alef Line (video performance & video loop), Zero Paths (video loop), Freedom scale (slide show), Certified True Copy of an Original Document (Installation).
Some Concepts on Freedom
Alef - Alef Line
A frame of performance, 2019, Tehran
Sin Seeni
The performance is based on the final scene of Andrea Tarkovsky’s movie(‘Nostalgia’, 1983). The scene shows the leading character (the poet, Oleg Yankovsky) carrying a burning candle through the path of the Saint Catherine pool. The law is that every time the lighted candle goes out, he has to return to the beginning of the path and start moving again.
In this performance, the lit candle is moved along an important street in Tehran. Azadi Street in Tehran, connects two important points:
Enghelab Square (means Revolution) and Azadi Square. (means Freedom). The performance starts from Enghelab Square. towards Azadi Sq. and every time the candle is lit, it returns to the beginning of the path (Enghelab Sq.). Of course, in this performance, the lit candle never reaches the endpoint (Azadi Sq.), and in the twelfth attempt to move the lit candle, the candle melts completely, and the performance ends at this point.
Read More: https://sinseeni.com/aleph-aleph-line/
Certified True Copy of an Original Document
Installed at Apartment Projects, Berlin, 2026
Sin Seeni
Since the observer is always outside the event, the spread of information about the event from one observer to another occurs without considering the manner and quality of their observations. As a result, a dominant narrative tends to emerge and influence all other narratives. Therefore, our understanding of an event is shaped by this network of observations rather than by what transpired within the event.
Read more: https://sinseeni.com/certified-true-copy-of-an-original-document/
Azadi - Azadi (Freedon to Freedom)
Sin Seeni
These maps offer a visual and symbolic comparison between 37 squares with the name Azadi (meaning freedom)across Iran and the iconic same-name square in Tehran.”
The further a place is from the Center, the more symbols of freedom it might have (flags, statues, slogans) to compensate for the lack of *actual* freedom. The symbol becomes a substitute for the object.
Read More: https://sinseeni.com/the-shadow-of-freedom/
The Crunch
Sin Seeni
This time-consuming project, made between 2020 and 2021, is a sound collage based on the Persian translation of Charles Bukowski’s poem “The Crunch,” which the poet edited twice in 1977 and once in 1999.
Here is the fourth version of the combination of the second and third edited pieces.
The source of the sounds is the revolutionary hymns of Iran in the years before and after the 1979 revolution, and 42 hymns have been utilized in this project.
The sounds have been put together layer by layer to reconstruct the translated text to make it whole. Each word may be composed of sounds found in several words taken from hymns. A general formula has been created for this reconstruction, specifying the entire collage in the phonetic alphabet with its references.
Read More: https://sinseeni.com/the-crunch/
Azadi -Azadi (Freedom to Freedom)
Sin Seeni
This time-consuming project, made between 2020 and 2021, is a sound collage based on the Persian translation of Charles Bukowski’s poem “The Crunch,” which the poet edited twice in 1977 and once in 1999.
Here is the fourth version of the combination of the second and third edited pieces.
The source of the sounds is the revolutionary hymns of Iran in the years before and after the 1979 revolution, and 42 hymns have been utilized in this project.
The sounds have been put together layer by layer to reconstruct the translated text to make it whole. Each word may be composed of sounds found in several words taken from hymns. A general formula has been created for this reconstruction, specifying the entire collage in the phonetic alphabet with its references.
Read More: https://sinseeni.com/the-shadow-of-freedom/