Professor Naeem Mohaiemen Presents 'THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY' at Artangel, UK

Associate Professor of Visual Arts Naeem Mohaiemen recently opened a new video exhibition, THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, at Artangel, UK. 

The three-channel film revisits the turbulent May of 1970, when American students protesting domestic racism and overseas wars were met by state violence. Circling around the Vietnam War and the Nixon presidency, the work centers on the Kent State shootings on May 4, in which four students were killed, and the fatal shooting of two students at Jackson State—a historically Black College—10 days later.

Foregoing a clear narrative, Mohaiemen creates a whirling collage of cultural artifacts, combining clips from iconic 1970s films like The Deerhunter and music by Bob Dylan, Jimmy Cliff, and Neil Young with footage of the Kent State shootings and Nixon's televised response. 

Whether it takes the form of photography, film, or essay, Mohaiemen's work explores the cycles of hope and heartbreak that mark revolutionary uprisings. He previously explored the complex political landscapes in Bangladesh, Algeria, and Pakistan during the 1970s in his three-channel film TWO MEETINGS AND A FUNERAL (2017), nominated for the Turner Prize in 2018. THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY sees Mohaiemen return to the decade, this time through the lens of North America, where he moved in 1989 to study at Oberlin College, Ohio. 

"I first encountered the events of Kent State as a newly arrived international student in Ohio and have been thinking about it, sporadically, ever since," shared Mohaiemen in the exhibition's press release. "The last six decades remind us that history may not repeat, but it rhymes…I consider this uncanny eternal return an 'accidental Trojan horse,' where protest and uprisings are also capitalized by conservative state forces to strengthen authoritarianism."

Revisiting archival footage with the wisdom of retrospect, Mohaiemen's work foregrounds the ambiguity and complexity that often goes unexamined in highly charged political moments. Including archival footage as well as contemporary footage memorialising the killings in Ohio and Mississippi, THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY juxtaposes the vast collective memory of the Kent State shootings with the relative invisibility of the deaths at Jackson State. In addition to protest footage, we see the conservative backlash to the protests, one factor in the long-term seduction of the "silent majority" toward a new right-wing politics in the United States.  

The title of the film serves as instructions for the viewer: "In Corinthians 13:12, 'through a glass, darkly' meant the impossibility of viewing the full scope of divine plans," explained Mohaiemen. "In a more earthly, secular context, I consider the  memorialization of the Vietnam War era, and how the farther away we get in years, the hazier the many meanings of events in the mirror of memory become."

The layers of the film are compounded by its setting. While the film was commissioned and produced by Artangel, it is exhibited at Albany House in central London, the former home of the British Transport Police, located on a block dominated by government buildings. In this way, the viewer becomes physically implicated in the project of the film, and the effect is less than comforting. But Mohaiemen trades a neatly packaged message for searing honesty, and that is reassuring in its own right.

Mohaiemen, who also heads the Photography concentration and serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Visual Arts Program, combines photography, films, archives, and essays to research the many forms of utopia-dystopia, including families, borders, architecture, and uprisings. He was born in London, England, and grew up in Tripoli, Libya, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is author of Midnight’s Third Child (Nokta, forthcoming) and Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Kunsthalle Basel, 2014); editor of Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism (Drishtipat, 2010); and co-editor with Eszter Szakacs of Solidarity Must be Defended (Tranzit, forthcoming) and with Lorenzo Fusi of System Error: War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (Sylvana, 2007). Monographs on his work include What We Found After You Left (Power Plant, 2021).

Mohaiemen's work has been exhibited widely and is held in the permanent collections of MoMA, Tate Modern, MACBA, Van Abbemuseum, Art Institute of Chicago, and Kiran Nadar Museum. He was a finalist for the Villem Flusser Theory Award (2009), Mario Merz Prize (2015), Turner Prize (2018), and Herb Alpert Award (2019).

THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY is on view September 21–November 9, 2025 at Artangel at Albany House, London, and will travel to The Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, in Spring 2026.