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Labkhand Olfatmanesh

Post Cyclone

Experimental film

"This film was presented in conjunction with ‘Blooming in the Whirlwind’ by Level Ground in October 2020, an experimental film and poetry collaboration, inspired by the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks.

This poem is based on recent events in Kolkata India. Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan was a powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone that caused widespread damage in Eastern India.

As humans continue to release planet-warming greenhouse gases, the likelihood of tropical cyclone activity will increase.

In my collaboration with the poet Madeleine St John, we talked about our trips in India. She shared her experience questioning her privilege as a white woman and I shared about my journey to India in 2002, through my lens as a woman of color. We discussed perspectives and challenging issues facing its environment and economy. At the same time, I remember noticing many moments and different definitions of enlightenment. From this place of curiosity, memory, and abstraction, I wove colorful and mesmerizing elements from my cultural engagement. And I reflected on the devastating effects of climate change."

– Labkhand Olfatmanesh

About the artist

Labkhand Olfatmanesh

Labkhand Olfatmanesh, born in Tehran, Iran, is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist and curator examining themes of feminism, race, isolation and borders in underrepresented communities. She blends fictionalized narratives with documentary techniques, portraiture, and social practice to explore intimacy, humor, psychology and transitory states that bridge one identity with another and how these forces take shape in the United States and her birthplace of Iran.

Labkhand has been exhibited across the US and internationally, including; Photo London U.K.; Rencontres d’Arles, France; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles; Helm Bakery District in collaboration with the Culver City Arts Foundation; the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco ; Jamaica Center of Art & Learning, NY ;CICA Museum, South Korea ; 2020 Feminist Border Arts Film Festival, NMSU ;4Culture, Seattle, WA ; The Glass Box Gallery at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

She was also awarded the LensCulture Portrait Awards Jurors’ Pick and received first place at the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s second annual fine art photo competition; second place CAFAM & Farhang Foundation (Focus Iran 3); Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grantee, NYC.

Her work has also been featured by the United Nations, the British Council, and Australian High Commission and in the UNESCO Palace, Lebanon. She is currently a board member at Level Ground organization; Artist in residence in Side street project based on Pasadena and 2021 Active Innovator Leadership program at Art for LA.

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