Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Persian Broken Fish Project

TEHRAN, IRAN

In early April I undertook two weeks residency with environmental artist Ahmed Nadalian in Iran. I had a lot of problems with Ahmed's approach, which seemed to me apolitical and apathetic at a time when action is paramount. He, in turn, found me to be overly cynical and detached (my words).

I promised him I would make a performance if he gave me one of his fish, which he makes by carving images of fish into rocks. When he gave it to me I began to smash it against the tiles of his gallery. Ahmed was filming using my camera. When it was finished, we realised that the camera was not rolling. I filmed the subsequent moment by accident, you can hear our embarrassed laughter.



2013-04-09 17.58.42 from Richard Pettifer on Vimeo.


Ahmed would late charge me 10,000 Iranian Rial (about $3) for the rock. He told me now that it was broken he would be able to sell it for double.

I conducted an interview with Ahmed about climate change - which I will post shortly.

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