Belonging to the ‘diaspora’ entailed the investigation of ‘belonging’ within the realm of simultaneous disparities and interchangeabilities of pseudo-home and motherland; Harvest (Tehran Series) is an attempt to assert and reconnect with ‘home’ as a relocated artist- a performative exploration of a city whose hominess is just as ambiguous and alien as it is intrinsic and inherent, arriving at an alternative navigation and reading of the landscape.
The performative process entailed walking the streets of Tehran through various socio-politically and historically iconic routes and landmarks, rich residential and dilapidated neighborhoods whilst studying surfaces to capture overlaying patterns of pavement tiles, manhole covers and grits from different eras of the city's evolution in a series of frottage. The process of transferring paint, particles and residues off of these surfaces onto sheets of canvas simultaneously provide for laying claim to the land and its topography and extending it as an unconforming account of the city- the canvases transform the ephemeral and performative exploration of the city from a personal relationship to a shared platform.
The title of each work identifies the location where the process unfolded iterating the cultural and sociopolitical narratives of the site.
The photo documentary of Harvest by Arya Abolhassani