Savušun

Each year, Shiites lament the death of Imam Husayn in collective acts of mourning – involving ritualised gestures, self-flagellation, dancing and song. In Savušun, Sorour Darabi, an artist of Iranian descent, moves with great humour and tact between real and symbolic loss, undermining representations of sorrow and victimhood. Darabi’s non-binary corporeality manifests on the stage as subversion and symbolises the dissolution, blurring and fragile certainty of prefabricated (gender) categories.