Shezad Dawood (b. 1974, London, England; based in London)
Leviathan

Episode 1: Ben, 2017
Single screen, 12:52 min.
Commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection, Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology, with support from The Contemporary Art Society

Episode 2: Yasmine, 2017
Single screen, 22:10 min.
Commissioned by CREAM – University of Westminster and Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology

Episode 3: Arturo, 2017
Single screen, 17:25 min.
Commissioned by Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology

Episode 4: Jamila, 2018
Single screen, 10:36 min.
Commissioned by Arts Council, England, Barakat,
Seoul, HE.RO Amsterdam and Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology

Episode 5: Ismael, 2018
Single screen, 19:28 min.
Commissioned by A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, and a Canadian partnership between Fogo Island Arts Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, and Toronto Biennial of Art

Episode 6: Ding Ling & Senait, 2020
Single screen, HD video, 18:46 min.
Commissioned by CCA Tel Aviv, Outset Foundation for Contemporary Art, The (He)art for (He)art Program (Francisca Viudes), and Arts Council England. Image courtesy of UBIK Productions

Leviathan is a proposal to envision a future that is very much like our present, where the boundaries of the social, political, and scientific are genuinely challenged. Historically, Leviathan is the primordial sea serpent depicted in Jewish mythology, brought to collective consciousness by Thomas Hobbes’ treatise on human nature. In Dawood’s expansion of the mythology with socio-philosophical critique, Leviathan takes the form of meditations on time, space, human nature, ecology, and the source and unfolding of life through an episodic reveal of connecting threads and contradicting realities.

Leviathan can also be associated with its roots in the Hebrew word lavah, meaning to couple, to connect and join, as the project interweaves seemingly disjointed practices and bodies of knowledge, drawing outstanding parallels between species, communities, and cultures. Based on extensive and thorough research, Leviathan is the outcome of ongoing dialogues with a wide range of marine biologists, oceanographers, political scientists, neurologists, and trauma specialists. This approach is typical for Dawood’s practice, which often involves collaboration, working with groups and individuals across different territories to physically and conceptually map far-reaching lines of inquiry.

By Fatoş Ustek (based in London)