In the Disguise of a Gift
Intrigued by a small-sized weight with a fake arabic inscription, that is an indicator of structures of appropriation and mistranslation, visual artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian rewrites a mythological narrative where playfulness and criticality are closely interwoven within each captivating and carefully conducted sentence. In the Disguise of a Gift, Afrang appropriates the language of the popular Nordic Mythology writer Neil Gaiman. An undoing of Gaiman’s machoistic tone and writing which puts forward a contemporary perspective on the palimpsest, a form of writing that erases the old yet leaves physical and metaphorical traces to the original sources. Through posing questions regarding what constitutes a gift and its recipient, Afrang’s newly constructed mythology reflects on the social and political economy of gift-giving.