In his work, Hadi Falapishi employs a seemingly humorous cast of characters - humans, cats, mice, and other animals, to enact a meditation on themes of displacement, alienation, and entrapment. His large-scale photographic works play on photography’s traditional role to reflect the society in which they were made, as well as the technical virtuosity that typically accompanies the medium. Rather than using photography as a direct document, he creates unique works that result from private sessions in the darkroom, where Falapishi manipulates the surface of photosensitive paper using flashlights and direct exposure to light. Cartoonish in appearance, his compositions reflect not a process of deskilling, but are instead the results of the constraints of darkness, and the limitations of his own body. Falapishi’s characters are placed within seemingly generic architectural environments, such as houses, fences, or other barriers, the figures’ interactions quickly take on resonance with familiar social hierarchies - the power structures within society, ideas of ownership and residence, and inside versus outside. These figures appear to revel in their own personal vices, confusing the morality implied by the traditional roles they assume. Often engaging in a tongue-in-cheek violence, which carries over to Falapishi’s sculptural and installation-based works, his characters reflect how tenuous and fragile the familiar structures of our society can be, and a shared fear of isolation.
