In 2012, the government decided to build a new highway between Tehran and Sari. In pursuit of this, agricultural lands along the route were acquired, and their trees were cut down. Some forests also fell in the path of this road.
In response to these happening, this performance was carried out. Eventually, the highway was built and passed through these lands. The act of standing here becomes significant.
This performance took place in one of the lands that lay in the path of the road in a rural village near the Nasoun forests of Nowshahr, adjacent to the Hyrcanian forests.
The artist took a sapling out of the ground and dug a pit. Then, he entered the pit and installed a medical device on his heart. Placing it on the sapling’s stem, he instructed his assistant to pour soil on himself until the soil reached the artist’s nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. At this stage, the audience was only allowed to monitor the artist’s heartbeat.
The performance concluded when the artist could no longer breathe beneath the soil.
Statement:
Prague 1968: Picture of a man stopping Soviet Union’s tanks putting his body in front of them.
Gaza 1990’s: A Palestinian mother saving her house from getting demolished by her standing body.
Repetition of the body is the imagination of human’s acts on the earth, standing body’s persistence repeats an image again and again, because the body gains identity by standing this way. These images don’t looking for a new meaning; they are connecting with the historical memory and life.
This time construction of a road is supposed to change/destroy another area on the earth. This place calls another body to connect with the earth and represents an image of the act one more time.
Assistants: Dadbeh Baghery – Rasoul Kazemi
Photographer: Mahour Vajdi
Special Thanks to Jalal Mashmouli – Naghme Manavi
