April 2011
Souvenir Collective is an intervention that took place while I was an artist resident in Kinderdijk.  We as a group of artists made an intervention at the World Herritage Windmills (Kinderdijk, Netherlands).  Annually thousands of people from across the world come to this place to visit the very old brilliant windmills.  We made a one-day intervention by painting the windmills on canvases and sold them as souvenirs with a very low price - 5,- euro each.  By pushing the idea the objects to sell to the tourists turned into a various objects that are usually conventionally reproduced and sold on touristic spots.  We created and sold them at the same time.

Photo above: 
KINDERDIJK used gloves for sale, Laura Pardo's property. 
Retailer and maker: Paul Buchanan.
Customer: tourists at Kinderdijk.
Photo by: Fariborz Farid
If you are interested to buy this pair please go to the Souvenir Collective website.

March 2011
Shaking hands is one of the most done activities in the public space as way to greet.  The social-public activities are the “ready-mades” for my works. The ready-mades or found-objects not only present the customs, but also represent the personal characters, people expectations, sense of trust...

Shaking hands is so banal and ephemeral.  Besides one needs to be trusted – so then people let you experience the sense of touch with them.  This ephemeral activity is done whether to show or improve the friendship, to be warm with a person, or ending a conversation. Bank employers shake hand with the customers to show them honesty and friendliness enough to keep their money.  In the Islamic cultures the greetings between men and women is all about to do or not to do the handshakes.

Hand shaking through the history has been used as a symbolic way of expression; e.g. in the middle ages hand shaking has been applied as an act of showing not carrying weapons.  Through the time it absorbed different applications to itself.  As now for instance the Secret Handshake is also very important to man. By sharing a secret handshake with a group of friends, it will allow you to tell who is a part of your group and who the outcasts are.  If you feel that everyone else in your group cannot do the secret handshake properly, you are the outcast.

Although the handshake is a very swift gesture in which often no words are exchanged, it has the potential to make someone think you are the most limp-wristed pansy that ever walked the earth or that you are by far the toughest creature they have ever had the honor of shaking hands with.  The choice is ultimately up to you.  Make your handshake worth it.  Nowadays shaking hands has been emptied from the pre-mind-sets of the middle ages.

* Picture above: me in ocher jacket (left) shaking hands with a stranger at the Centraal Station Utrecht.

* Bellow a sample-documentation for the 200 handshakes:

February 2011
Axel Baillet is a locally known soccer player in Utrecht who joined me in realizing an intervention.  The intervention took place at Jaarbeursplein (which in terms of things happening there) is almost a none-place in Utrecht.  It is one of the largest (in size) entrances to the central train station of the city and the rush to this area is not as much as the other various entrances.  There are just a few bus stops that drive to smaller cities around.  The passengers wait for a short time on rows to get in the buses.  The other crowd walking in to or out from the central train station.

I asked the soccer player to have one of his trainings there.  He just had to play with the people around him as opponents in a soccer match.  As it could be expected some people reacted positively and some others just passed by reluctantly.  But what I aimed for was to see how people react to a soccer star and how they react.  As far as soccer is the most favorite sport in the Netherlands I tried to introduce another dimension to the space there by giving a chance to the passersby to play soccer with a professional soccer player for a while.  If fact the people respect and react to what they are interested in.

It seems that each of the people there did their best in a way to be famous for a while.  It is about involving in a social product.  The moment of owning the ball is not so long but trying to gain it is much more than that and fun.  I like to use the reactions as a metaphor for the daily life.  We all react naturally to the attacks and cooperations.

The documentation of the work is a 10 minute video in which people react to the soccer player.

*Picture above:  Axel Baillet (right) is a soccer player in Utrecht club- has passed the football to a stranger (left) while he is enjoying the football.

January 2011
I follow my self portrait on every mobile object and everything that might be defined as my self- portrait.  I film them because the self portrait is usually defined in paintings and photographs but a self portrait can move and change by the light it's shed on it or the shadow it casts.
  
You can see a sample of my self portrait on a mobile object.  The mobile object here is a colleague of mine, Leonardo Vargas.  In fact we all have a different portrait and outlooking on different people.  We are what others think and we all try to become what we like ourselves and let people see us so. 

Above: short shots from My self-portraits

I also find my shadow in relation to the objects in the spaces I inhabit.  It is all of us that have effects on the space and the space also returns to us and has effects on us.  The humans have influence on the nature and the nature makes changes to the lives of people both physically and spiritually.

The material that I have chosen to document and present this intervention is a series of video which is filmed with a power shot digital camera or my cell phone.
There are many people that use cell phones with cameras on it.  Using the same method to take the moments of a day or make an agenda on the cell phone that most of carry with us is a part of us like self portrait.

Above:  short shot from My self-portraits

July 2009
This intervention took place in July 2009 in a piece of land in the suburbs of my home town Tehran.  I made a pathway of newspapers on the land - as the news is transfered very late to these not so far away areas from them center.  The people in the suburbs are defined as being away from the news and the upheavals of the mega capital city of Iran - although they are not too far away from the whole bunches of the news occurring in the 50 kilometers away mega city.  This temporary pathway was blown away by the wind and nothing remained out of it after half an hours and I had to collect all the papers from the end of the ground or the bushes and the trees.