Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Alia Syed Eating Grass on view through July 28, 2013.
Alia Syed (Wales, b. 1964), Stills from Eating Grass, 2003, 16mm film, transferred to HD DVD, Sound, 22:56 min. Photos courtesy of the artist and Talwar Gallery, New York/New Delhi.
Filmed in Karachi, Lahore, and London, Eating Grass comprises five overlapping narratives, each representing different emotional states experienced throughout the day that are marked by the Muslim tradition of five daily prayers. Eating Grass captures the ebb and flow of urban dwellers as they move between the bustling streets and marketplaces and quiet interior spaces from morning to night. A layered soundtrack mixed with passages of Syed’s prose, recited alternately in English and Urdu, plays over this landscape, adding yet another narrative dimension.
Alia Syed (b. 1964) is an experimental filmmaker whose work explores issues of identity, representation, and intercultural communication through storytelling and language.