An Interview with Fari Bradley

Sound artist Fari Bradley answers questions about the role of sound in her artwork. She explores themes of identity and belonging in the Iranian diaspora. This interview was undertaken by email in April 2011.

#3: What fascinates you about the medium of sound and made it the focus of your work?

Fari Bradley: While I was studying journalism, being able to edit sound creatively just came naturally as I'd studied music all my life. Sound is that ever-present thing, there's no such thing as complete silence. What's interesting is that hearing can be so selective, subliminal, super perceptive... and it tells us so much about a person, what subjective things they perceive in a sound or even in a sentence's meaning.

#3: Why did you decide to create a show about Iranian arts and culture in London?

FB: There was nothing in the media for Iranians who didn't speak Persian. BBC Persian's main purpose is to beam back to Iran. There was also no regular outlet for Iranian interests aimed at English speaking people who were simply interested in finding out more about the region. News only told of Islamic extremism, politics and war.

#3: How would you describe national identity? Is it a passport, a memory, a sound?

FB: It's a state of mind.

#3: What role does sound play for imagining and (be-)longing?

FB: I think it's to some extent an instinctive role. Many animals use sound not only to express themselves and communicate but also to understand the shape and space of a place. Those sonic signals sent out by them are deciphered by the way the signals bounce back to their maker. This also goes for our ancestors in the sea, who can tell what's coming from miles and miles away using sound waves. As people we have the capacity to use sound to signal a plethora of emotions and needs, and on a tribal level we identify with certain sounds, certain instruments or rhythms. These identifications can be limiting as far as imagination goes, but then again it is comforting.I remember going to Turkey when I was 14 and being deeply moved by the sound of the azan. It had a place in my unconscious. I'd not heard the call in the UK at all, but it had been in the background all the time during my life as a small child and hearing it at 14 was an immense door opening up into my past that I'd until then forgotten.

Desert Debris by FariB

#3: How does "Iranianess" change outside of Iran? Can there be new interpretations of what being Iranian means?

FB: Sure, there have to be new interpretations. It's a mistake to be stuck in the mud about this. I often compare our UK Iranian community to the Indian one as they faced similar issues as we are facing now, but back in the 60s. Because of that time difference and because they were more in numbers, they are light-years ahead of us in terms of integrating, reclaiming their identity as a community. And also in terms of second and third generations coming up with their hybrid blends of interests and identifications. Living abroad, we're either forced to question a lot of things we do automatically, or see the wisdom in them more keenly. That way Iranianess often becomes more distinct abroad, either because people gather in cliques, or they make more of an effort to continue Iranian tradition or even develop into a more global identity while doing both of those. It's complicated!

#3: A recent film on female Iranian artists, Pearls on the Ocean Floor by Roberto Adanto, shows some of these artists living in the diaspora. A critic suggested that what seemed the common thread among these women was a sadness that each felt from being uprooted and losing one's homeland. Your show celebrates being an Iranian in London. How do you feel about this tension?

FB: It's true, I loved aspects of my English schooling — the orderliness and the green fields of England — and I love the mix and insight the two cultures afford me. I'll never be completely English, nor would I want to be (though as a child you just want to fit in). Regarding the film, I feel if the common voice of these twenty or so women unify to say that on the whole part of them will always long to be free to return as and when they wish, people ought to listen and be open to what they have to say. There is not one representation of what an Iranian is that we couldn't rip apart if we wanted to as armchair critics. It's much wiser to look for the truth in a thing than to treat it as an exclusive representation and say it doesn't match up to the whole. As for happiness and sadness, I feel in life we only truly know one by experiencing the other. For many women coming over here, there are certain freedoms, perhaps to be able to perform solo in public, dress as your mood takes you, and make lifestyle choices, but your relatives, the places you know, the sounds, the smells, and the sights of the surroundings you have defined yourself by are no longer available to you daily. It's natural you feel cutoff. However, when we're busy longing for something we don't have, we often miss those things that we do have, partly because they seem too obvious while we have them. I think one thing Iranians can teach the English is to be open-hearted, a characteristic that is not part of the Northern European public persona and whose lacking probably contributes to any sadness that Iranians may feel living here. For me though, extensive travelling has just confirmed the thing that makes me completely happy: that in fact the world is made up of one enormous family, filled with the same variety, even while people are people everywhere one might go.

#3: You have met a wide range of Iranian artists and other cultural practitioners. Is there something that they all have in common?

FB: Yes. It would be hard to put into words though. As human beings everyone wears the dignity of something they have inside, some skill or capacity, a sense of humour beneath the sedateness! There's also an understanding that exists, mostly unspoken, that they demonstrate. Aside from that, I've seen a lot of trauma too, in migrants who sometimes may have been refugees. It's not taken into consideration enough by society, the individual and mass scarring that has occurred. As artists, there's alanguage that has developed and continues to develop that is at times enlightening to engage with.

#3: Is there an exchange taking place between artists inside of and outside of Iran? Do you follow the sound artists working there?

FB: There is some exchange but not enough. The music that trickles through to Iran tends, especially before the internet, to reach Iran in stops and starts, which explains why many musicians are still playing guitars and singing rock songs that sound like 80s or 90s emulation. The sound scene in Iran is disjointed by not having a physical communal performance space as such, but it exists and we've heard some great pieces on the show.

#3: According to some contemporary postcolonial cultural theorists, "we all are multicultural". Would you agree with this? How does your own background play into your work? Is music the best medium to incorporate this notion of fluidity and hybridity inherent in multiculturalism?

FB: Perhaps, yes. Where there is social fluidity there will always be a flourishing culture. I would tend to agree then that we are all multicultural to some extent and this goes without saying in a city. However, we tend to be interested in some cultures more than others and that is sometimes hard to pinpoint why. When I meet curators and writers who are not Iranian but who are passionate about Iranian art or culture, I will ask them why they went in that direction or are driven to do what they do. Mostly this drive can be so integral to them that it's enough for them to answer they've always been interested in these things, and they feel confident enough to answer without a reason. Who are we to dismiss that? My background comes into my work in terms of standards, but I'm talking about my English schooling here and my mother's own standards. I guess I'd have to be able to say which part of me and my family is Iranian and which isn't to answer this fully. Suffice to say, there are plenty of things we did in my family which were because we were Iranian, but I didn't know it at the time. I just thought everyone was as different from each other as we were from them.

#3: What Iranian sound is most personally moving?

FB: Well there are plenty to choose from, one I've already mentioned. Others are a metal string, animal skin over wood... the list of obvious sounds goes on. But most of all and ironically, it might be the one sound we don't get to hear today in Iran, it is a woman's voice singing solo, but only in alto. Strangely though, it also works for me in English so I surmise that it must be the quality of an Iranian voice, not just the language or music structure that gives me those goosebumps, that are again and again a measure for what is sublime.

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