Alternative Iran by Karimi Pamela;

Author:Karimi, Pamela;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 4.7 Neda Razavipour, Alice in the City. 2010. Azad Art Gallery, Tehran. Photograph by Azad Art Gallery staff. Courtesy of Neda Razavipour.

At the back of the gallery, he found a small basement storage space, 2.5 by 6 square meters, that had not been used for decades. It was windowless, damp, dark, and filled with spider webs, as Golnari recalled a decade later.66 After installing metal bars along two sides of the dark space, to give it the feel of a prison, he placed two rows of six burning candles behind the bars, along with small plates of salt, and books of philosophy and accounts of historic persecution, such as Shahrokh Maskoob’s Mourning for Siavash (Soog-e siavash, 1971), a modern take on the unjust killing of a heroic figure from Ferdowsi’s tenth-century epic, Shahnameh. These objects were placed on the floor, as though in the presence of six political prisoners, who themselves were absent from the installation. The arrangement was coupled with the sound of dripping water, evoking water torture.

The space was tomb-like, and so tight only one person could enter at a time. Uncomfortable to experience, it heightened the anxieties and frustrations that characterized the mood of the times. Mockingly titled Feast (Ziyafat), the work commemorated all those who were harmed during the Green Movement (fig. 4.8).67

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