Dast Forushi

2020 - Tehran, Iran

Collective Art Project
Sara Borujeni, Yaser Rajabali, Majid Ziaei, Parsa Kamekhosh
Presented in The 8th Tehran National Sculpture Biennial, Tehran, 2020
Photos: Mehrdad Varasteh

STATEMENT
The art market has been subjected to criticisms for being engaged with issues such as the art mafia, money laundering, counterfeiting, and using power to turn certain people into celebrities in the cycle of the art economy. Moreover, the high turnover of this market has somehow placed art in the role of a facilitator in capitalist structures, and this has marginalized art as a social propellant. This project seeks to apply “peddlling” as a medium to disrupt such order by branching the exhibition space out to the surrounding alleys of the actual sculpture biennial venue. This lead to taking a step towards the audience and interacting with them in a public sphere.
Peddlling does not seem to belong to the market system, but rather an act that peacefully counters order of it. This method supports a way for citizens to regain power and reclaim the public sphere. It is considered as a kind of socially engaging creativity that resists the formal market structures. Although,it has incessantly been a pretext for oppression by the system. 
In this project, the following four artists have worked with the “hand” as a subject to create a body of objects/sculptures available to be peddled by them to the public during the 8th Tehran National Sculpture Biennial, Tehran

Sara Borujeni displays a collection called “Up to Fourteen Years Old “, Yaser Rajabali with the collection called “Introduction to the Anthropology of Hunting”, Majid Ziaei with the collection called “Try to enjoy watching it” and Parsa Kamekhosh with the collection titled as “National Pickle” have participated in this project.

*The word Dastforushi which is Farsi equivalent to the word “peddlling”, consists of two words: Dast meaning “hand” and Forushi which comes from the root of the verb “to sell”.