Afsan’s Long Day, The Young Man Was: Part 2 (2014) by Naeem Mohaiemen
The Power Plant Presents: Afsan’s Long Day, The Young Man Was: Part 2 (2014) by Naeem Mohaiemen
Naeem Mohaiemen's exhibition at The Power Plant, What we found after you left, spans two season with a rotating program of films and accompanying footnotes that explore historical ruptures, documentation and archives.
As the fourth chapter in the exhibition, Afsan’s Long Day, The Young Man Was: Part 2 (2014) was supposed to premiere at The Power Plant in March 2020. Social distancing measures have delayed the film's presentation within the Gallery space, but we are thrilled to exhibit it online for home viewing until 5 June.
Afsan’s Long Day (2014) is the second work in The Young Man Was series (made between 2012 and 2016), the entirety of which probes the lives of the men who were the chief actors in revolutionary struggles in the 1970s. These men are, according to a prevailing western-centric history, supporting actors: in Afsan’s Long Day, the two predominant figures are Afsan Chowdhury, a Marxist Bangladeshi historian active in the 1970s; and Joschka Fischer, the German former left-wing militant who ‘defected to electoral politics’ in 1983. Through a montage of wide-ranging archival footage, voiceover and still photography, Mohaiemen’s subjects raise questions of the failures of revolutionary politics in the 1970s. By examining the ways in which futile machismo played into the failures of the left in this period, Afsan's Long Day draws attention to still-pervasive gender constructions that continue to shape political power globally.
Password: TPPMohaiemen
About the artist.
Naeem Mohaiemen (born 1969 in London, UK) lives in New York. His work has recently been exhibited at SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul (2019); Mahmoud Darwish Museum, Ramallah (2018); Vasas Federation of Metalworkers' Union, Budapest (2018); Abdur Razzaq Foundation, Dhaka (2017) and documenta 14, Athens/ Kassel (2017). In Canada, he has previously shown at Hot Docs (2012), A Space Gallery (Images Festival, 2012), Gallery TPW (Images Festival, 2013), and VOX–Centre de l'image contemporaine (2016). Mohaiemen co-edited (with Lorenzo Fusi) System Error: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Papesse, 2006) and is currently co-editing (with Eszter Szakacs) Solidarity Must be Defended (Tranzit/ Van Abbe/ Salt/ Tricontinental, 2019). In New York, he was a member of Visible Collective (2002–07), 3rd i South Asian Film (2000–04) and Samar: South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection (1995–99); in Dhaka, he was a member of Drishtipat (2001–11) and Alal O Dulal (2012–17). He was a Guggenheim Fellow (2014) and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize (2018).
