MOSADEGH Reza Nik was a shoemaker in Hamedan. A few days after the Revolution, he changed the name of his little shop to Mosadeqh, the name of the first elected prime minister of Iran, deposed in a CIA coup. He installed a neon sign with the namefour connected letters that in Farsi, reads as MSDQ. In a month or so, the new authorities ordered him to change the name. He had the first letter taken out, and now the shop was called Sedqh, which means truth. After a few years, the light in the S went out too. His shops new name was Deqhwhich means death by heartbreak. He let this new title stand,
2017,
plexiglass sign, LED light,
cm 40 x 100 x 7

When they began to execute the enemies of religion the Leftists, or the atheists, or even the Islamists who strayed from the official paththe hardliners faced the problem of where to bury the bodies. In the beginning, the bodies were buried in the main cemetery of the city. But the pious claimed that the infidels threatened the peace of their martyrs souls. So a Fatwa was passed, and in my city, Rasht, where the infidel had died in strong numbers, the authorities received a permit to remove the undesirable elements to a far corner, away from the others. A grave here, a grave there was dug up and pushed to the cornerlittle, inconspicuous empty spots. Except for where the three Ahmadi brothers and two of their cousins had been buried next to one another, all killed on the same night, in the same prison. There was then a large, empty hole. At night, it was rumored, someone had brought in a little monument and placed it there. In a few days, the authorities removed it. No one had taken a picture, no one seemed to know what it looked like, or who had placed it there,
2017,
monotype on platinum paper, silkscreen on wooden frame,
cm 143 x 87 x 5

My father was there when Dr. Mosaddeq was buried in a room in his own home in Ahmadabad. The old prime minister had asked to be laid to rest with the people who had died defending his elected government. The secret police wouldn't have it, and so Mosaddeq's friends and family brought the body back to his house, washed it, and placed it in a grave they dug in one of the rooms. My father was a young villager from Ahmadabad, come to pay his last respects. He helped dig the grave, then helped line it with bricks to make sure the body would remain intact until such time as it could be moved to a proper burial place. Thirty years and a revolution later, I went with dad to Ahmadabad to visit the tombeven the new government wouldn't allow it to be moved to a real cemetery. There was a guard at the door, a young conscript soldier, and he barred our entrance and got a little nasty when my father insisted.Ive tried often since, but I've never been allowed in,
2017,
monotype on platinum paper, silkscreen on wooden frame,
cm 143 x 87 x 5

The Bahi cemetery in Tehran was next to the Jewish cemetery, where my father is buried. Where the Bahi graves used to be, there is now what they call a cultural center. The government excavated the Bahi graves. Years of grave digging had weakened the soil, so they had to dig especially deep. The stones were broken and, along with the rest of what was removed from the land, poured into the foundations of the highway that was being constructed nearby. My fathers grave in the Jewish cemetery is at the Western-most corner, where all of those who died of unnatural causes are buried. When we stand by his grave, its usually to the roar of the busy highway and the sound of cheap disco music coming from the cultural center next door,
2017,
monotype on platinum paper, silkscreen on wooden frame,
cm 143 x 87 x 5

The mass graves where the government buried the victims of the prison massacres were shallow. In the early years, after a heavy rain, faces stared out of the arid Khavaran hillside. The regime has never acknowledged the thousands of political prisoners buried at Khavaran. But the families have gathered there every year, risking arrest and abuse, to mark the land with makeshift monuments. In 2009, the authorities ordered trees to be planted there, no doubt, in an attempt to remove the markers of a disturbing history. The state employees, however, had not counted on the graves being so shallow. As the bulldozers turned the earth, once again, the bodies surfaced. Bones and clothes poured out of the land and lay in piles. Everyone, including the workers, were upset. The bodies were pushed back into the land or removedwe couldnt quite tell. But we still gather there every year, just before the New Year breaks,
2017,
monotype on platinum paper, silkscreen on wooden frame,
cm 143 x 87 x 5

The grave of the Sufi in Kermanshah, a minor shrine of sort for the third generation of his students, was paved over in 2010. It was an overnight job, and no one had felt the need to remove the knickknacks inside the little shack that covered the grave. When I went there a year later, the tiny rug that lay at its entrance had been swallowed by the pavement,
2017,
sculpture, mortar, clay, digital photo on silk chiffon,
cm 160 x 120 x 12

I Dream the Mountain is Still Whole,
2017,
HD video,17'06'',
ed. 5 + 2 AP

Unnamed Mountain,
2017,
c – digital print,
cm 50 x 75,
ed. 3 + AP

I Long for a Game of Football,
2017,
HD video, 18'50'',
ed. 5 + 2 AP