Press coverage

The Guardian, 31 October 2002

The Guardian, 31 October 2002:
"Logic of the Birds finds Neshat moving away from her familiar black and white into colour. Based on The Conference of the Birds, a fable by the 12th-century Sufi poet and philosopher Farid al'Din Attar, the hour-long piece incorporates film, music and live staging. "We were interested in experimenting with the idea of bringing film-making and live performance closer together, to the point where the narrative is conveyed through the film but is also unfolded on the stage."

"[...]The westerner looking at her pieces will almost certainly not see what an Iranian sees. "Sometimes it's almost as if they're totally opposite," she says. But no one could miss the real point. However abstracted and metaphoric the approach may be, however ravishingly exotic the sights and sounds, the struggle of individuals claiming the right to control their own destiny and identity is what compels the gaze." (Richard Williams - read full article)

The Times, 8 November 2002:
"This is a multimedia production inspired by Farid al-Din Attar's 12th-century Persian epic, The Conference of the Birds. His name "attar" loosely means "perfume seller". How perfect, then, that smell is the first sense stimulated as you enter the candle-lit venue full of pungent, musky incense. For this Artangel project, Shirin Neshat, the artist best known for her feminist take on Islamic society, is back with her regular collaborators - the writer Shoja Azari, the film-maker Ghasem Ebrahimian and the singer and composer Sussan Deyhim (all fellow Iranian exiles in New York). Deyhim, well-known for her interpretations of traditional Persian music, plays the protagonist on stage and in film footage seen on three screens." (Alex O'Connell - read full article)

The Observer, 10 November 2002:
"I saw Shirin Neshat's new work with the dislocated sensory perceptions of the after affects of flu. Yet so powerful was the performance that its effect upon the audience was to transform their state of mind into one close to mine - no longer sure of the distinction between reality and illusion, or of quite what had happened over the past hour." (Rose Aidin - read full article)

Contemporary Magazine, Issue 46, January 2003:
"Transporting us into a realm of affecting if abstract vocal imagery, the work was produced in collaboration with cinematographer Ghasem Ebrahimian and writer Shoja Azari, and the lighting was brilliantly choreographed by Stan Pressner who succeeded in transforming the Gothic interior of the Union Chapel into a truly other-worldly realm for the duration of the performance." (Richard Dyer)