Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Westminster
'Tehran Project', 2008-9
'Tehran, West Suburb, 2008' and 'Untitled, 2009' are two single, large-scale (122 cm x 230 cm and 123.5 cm x 266 cm) photographic tableaux, the former shot on the fringes of the Iranian capital, the latter inside the city of Tehran. Each is a standalone artwork in its own right, but they are also part of Tabrizian’s continuing project to rework the documentary genre in order to explore the possibilities of political art. 'Tehran West Suburb, 2008' and 'Untitled, 2009' respectively capture low-paid workers and students, both of whom volunteered for the project (in the case of the latter, shortly before the election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, amid allegations of vote-rigging). 'Untitled, 2009' was acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art for their collection. 'Tehran, West Suburb, 2008' was acquired for the collection of Zoroastrian Cultural Centre, Paris, France.
Please see portfolio for full documentation of research dimensions.
'Tehran Project' invites comparison with the work of a number of Iranian-born artists, including Shirin Neshat, Newsha Tavakolian, Reza Aramesh and the late Sadegh Tirafkan, whose work both draws upon and critiques contemporary Iran. However, in contrast to the gender-focussed and highly stylised poetics of Neshat, Tirafkan or Aramesh, Tabrizian pursues a realist agenda, to create documentary-style images of ordinary men and women enacting their own lives in real-world settings. And unlike Tavakolian, who has focussed on ordinary people via photojournalism and portraiture, Tabrizian opts for carefully constructed tableaux vivants. Tabrizian’s images present an alternative to contemporary depictions of Iranians that either highlight the exotic or present them as victims of religious and political repression. Working within the self-imposed parameters of a single image, Tabrizian makes every detail work towards her goal. In contrast to artists such as Simon Norfolk, for whom the landscape is all, she uses her real-world settings to add force to the ideas her “characters” represent. Just as 'City, London, 2008' (Output 1) gives visual expression to a sense of systemic malfunction and breakdown, the Tehran images, are snapshots of resilience. Borrowing a phrase from Homi Bhabha, Tabrizian shows that survival can be a strategy of resistance. Each image is a composite of two photographs. Both were shot in 6 x 7 format, then scanned, stitched together digitally and outputted onto 10 x 8 negatives, then made into photographic prints. 'Tehran West Suburb, 2008' involved workers from a local building site, while 'Untitled, 2009' drew in art students who volunteered after hearing Tabrizian speak at Tehran University.
