Humanity is a man in his sleep who dreams nightmare, which is called history.Julian GreenThe collection reviews Tehran both in geography and history (from the gate of the National Garden, Tehran University, City Theater building, Azadi Tower and Milad Tower to the unknown construction projects, and …). This gives the viewer a chance to contemplate on his environs on pretext of following the eyes of the subjects in photos. In the procedure of power relation inversions, the guide is a child who makes us stop by what we pass every day in an almost urban spiritual journey, the little girl who resembles me at seven, and my children at seven.The nightmare is where the little girl becomes confused to grasp the urban elements that never manifest thousands of years of history of residence in Tehran, rather they ignore continuation of its history. The city that teaches the child hatred and terror, the city that has been clad incongruously and oddly each period based on priorities, the city that proves to be unsuccessful in becoming a model to follow.Confrontation with incongruous constructions makes it impossible to form any logical trend according to the concept of architecture or even its evolution in the course of history. The city is full of structures with serious visual contrast between one another and in functional contradiction with themselves. It is the city that takes history away from the child in its favor. The city that is not responsive to the preliminary concerns of a child seeking her identity let alone reinforcing her identity. The sparse and scattered pieces of the city have been roughly put together by repetition of a whole-piece flag and this has never been hidden to the keen eyes of the child. The city is unbecoming and repulsive in all aspects including architecture, murals, education and urban behavior. The limited number of structures remaining from the golden age of Iranian architecture are not only uninviting, but also unbecoming, unpleasant and offensive because of creating non-ergonomic spaces. The intensity of these deterrent factors is so great that the city seems to be full of razor-sharp edges and protruding shapes to buildings in every corner marring eyes and associating insecurity and danger to the citizens. Just beyond the urban structures and buildings, urban decorations and murals show nothing but elegy of grieves. It seems that the city has been adorned to observe an endless mourning.
Sahar Samadian