This installation includes an unsettling and anomic 8’x4’x10’ (LWH) space. The walls are covered with a large 8’ x 14’ digital print with a single shelf that holds a book title, “The Severed Head” by Julia Kristeva in which she investigates the idea of human body as an integrated medium comprises the consciousness and the identity of the self. The printed contents of the book has been concealed with thin red masking tape, leaving only the word “head” exposed through out the whole book.

The flooring piece includes 152 kiln bricks positioned in a 4’x10’ grid. The surface of the bricks are covered with handwritten text which is the Farsi translation of the book “Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag. The fragile bricks fall apart by the movement of the audience in the space.

This work appears as an obscure lexicon, consisting of several indexes referring to destruction and subtraction. Each piece in this installation negates the presentation of itself as a pre-defined medium. There are texts that are impotent in conveying their intended message; diminished books that are incapable of structuring a common narrative; destructed prints that are depleted from the iconic value of an image; and bodies that are unable to introduce the real identity of individuals. This anomic space offers the possibility of relocating the meaning from both within the text, and from the intentionality of the author to the contingencies of the reception and spontaneity of interaction.

“War of Ignorance” is a series of appropriated images from the mass media, which depicts the casualties of recent conflict in Gaza. Each frame represents a lost identity; an abstracted vision of the sacred self, an autopsy, in order to bring the invisible to visibility.

This work is an inquiry to further understand how the pattern of violence and ignorance of media could exhaust a self through the systematic destruction of identity. A self that becomes the other, ignored and excluded but still a part of humanity; face-less others who are living on the air since they have been dispossessed from all lands!

“One Minute Engagement with an Iranian” is a representation of the self, based on social engagement that takes the whole of human relations and their social and cultural contexts as their theoretical and practical point of departure, rather than an independent experience of the self.

In this performance I began by presenting my body, as the carrier of my identity, within a green square, as I was inviting my viewers to re-figure my presence in that space by designing a one-minute pose for both themselves and for me.

In this public performance, artist confined himself in a pedestal, leaving his head out. He invited the viewers to have a role in shaping his identity, symbolically, by shaving his hair and facial hairs freely without any instruction.

Re-identification is about the struggle of capturing the invisible identity, or the subjective intimacy between the self and other, which is mixed with loss, fear, vulnerability, trauma, and affection.

(Photo documentation: Amir Farzad)

The idea of Artist is Absent is rooted in the critical engagement of the audience through exploring the image of the artist as an outsider, who [may] exist(s) in a different social and cultural context.

In this project artist mailed hundreds of his portrait to random people across the States asking them, in a letter, to tear his portrait apart and mail the pieces back to him. By destroying the image of the artist, participants were able to capture part of their own image through the trace of their cuts.

Live by Death is a series of portraits depicting shopkeepers in the old bazaar of Kashan, a city located in central Iran. As part of their traditions, many of these shopkeepers commemorate the loss of their loved ones by hanging the images of deceased family members in their working place. They also believe that such commemoration brings in prosperity and welfare to their lives.

This public collaborative project, is an effort to establish a peripheral relationship between artist and audience. Going to the streets with two cameras, I asked random people to take a picture from me while I was photographing them at the same time. Through this interaction, that was purposefully negating the conventional means of communication, I tried to create an affirmative dialogue both with the location and people.

Teleography is an ongoing collaborative project initiated in May 2012, wherein participants are invited to contribute photos (Teleographs), taken from their TV screen, to an online archive. This project seeks the possibility of a shift to an active viewer who confronts the media creatively!

This project was a collaboration between Farhad Bahram, Missy Weimer and Mahmoodreza Nourbakhsh.

Working simultaneously in Tehran and San Francisco, They hit the streets with the “You Are Beautiful” message, aspiring to create moments of positive self-realization. For two days in San Francisco, They took their hand-painted signs, which were written in Farsi, to Union Square, Market Street and the Golden Gate Bridge. They traveled by Bart and MUNI and spoke to anyone who approached them.

At the same time, which was night in Iran, Mahmoodreza was in Tehran. He was driving around with his light-up “taxi” sign “You Are Beautiful” in English. He settled at a coffee shop and photographed its willing occupants with the sign.

With our synchronous expeditions to promote good will, we spread an apolitical message. A message whose intention is a simple act of kindness. By doing this we aim to connect the people of these two diverse cultures, as well as have fun! The final pictures and documentations of this project were exhibited in Mission Culture Center on 18 January 18th 2012, in San Francisco.

In this public performance the artist put two chairs in the street and sat on one of them while waiting for random people to respond by sitting on the vacant chair in front of him. During this unexpected interaction they discussed different topics such as culture, politic and random social issues. At the end artist asked them to draw something, whether about their interaction or the environment around, and then gathered their mappings.

This project was a public engagement practice based on various possible interconnections between two 'Subjects' and an 'Object' as a bond between them.

The initial step was reaching out to random people through social networks and asking them to meet the anonymous artist at a location of their choice in the city of Tehran. As part of the invitation, they were asked to bring an object of their choice to the meeting and give it to the artist; This invitation had been sent to a group of about 300 random people and from that number, 31 individuals accepted to participate in the project and meet the anonymous artist.

The representative invited subjects had no specification other than the anonymity of participants.