Your Ecstatic Self
Viewed
from the passenger seat, Sajid drives through nondescript semi-urban spaces
relaying a journey of self-discovery that maps paths through astrology, Islam,
and the philosophy and practice of Tantra. Sajid’s narration poses questions
around the social function of the sexual where western perceptions of Pakistani
male sexuality confine liberatory readings of an expansive and emancipatory
erotic. Spatial and temporal shifts weave through the storytelling with archive
footage of pre-Islamic Indigenous shamanic rituals in the Hunza Valley,
Pakistan – a site of both cultural contestation and popular tourist hiking
destination, alongside sequences of plant cultivation and conjuring in a green
space performed by Priya Jay, writer in communion with Zaman.Your Ecstatic Self transitions between the liminal space of the car,
mountainside, or edgeland, where alternative epistemologies and ritual offer
possibilities to re-envision and transform.
With Sajid Zaman and Priya Jay. Camera, sound, edit Rehana Zaman. Camera Green Space Matthias Pilz. Sound recordist Green Space. Post production sound James Bull. Colour Ludovic Rousseaux, OKAY Studio. Commissioned by ICO/ LUX.
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Your Ecstatic Self, 2019, film stills, copyright the artist.