Dutch/Iranian auteur Navid Nuur explores 'permanent transience' with Renderender

'The art world is the only place where people listen to someone's personal and private language'
Permanent transience is a way of being for Navid Nuur, the Dutch/Iranian auteur. Here, he takes over DCA with an epic array of work that co-opts the temporary detritus of everyday life into a series of constructions that provoke as much as they play with the material to hand.
In what he describes as an ongoing set of 'interimodules' (a conflation of 'interim' and 'modules' that defines a state of impermanence beyond easy pigeon-holing), Nuur uses wheelie bins, water coolers, emergency blankets and slide projectors to make deeply personal expressions, riven from a very private world. 'The art world is the only place where people listen to someone's personal and private language,' he says.
For his second UK solo show, and his largest in a public space, Nuur presents key works, including When doubt turns into destiny (a surveillance video in which he attempts to evade detection in Berlins avenues and alleyways) and City Soil (a 1100-litre street bin filled with the ashes of the rubbish created in the making of the show). These will sit alongside new work inspired by both Dundee and the DCA site itself as a former hub for the local skateboarding community, and using found film footage.
As a former skater who came out of the graffiti art scene, Nuur recognises the world all too well. 'I wasnt that good,' he reflects, 'but I loved it so much that I didnt finish high school because of it. It wasnt just about the tricks, but more about being part of a community. Back in the 90s, no-one would support it, but when you were skating, you saw the world from a different angle. Not just the architecture, but yourself as well.'
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Sat 29 Mar–Sun 15 Jun.