Collective art project
Sara Borujeni, Yaser Rajabali, Majid Ziaei, Parsa Kamehkhosh
Presented at the 8th Tehran National Sculpture Biennial, Tehran, Iran, 2020
Photos: Mehrdad Varasteh

The art market has drawn criticism for what surrounds it: the art mafia, money laundering, counterfeiting, and the promotion of a few individuals as art celebrities — all of which keep the art economy turning on itself. The speed of that turnover has made art a facilitator within capitalist structures and pushed it to the margins as a social force. In response, this project takes up peddling as a medium with which to disturb that order, extending the exhibition beyond the biennial venue into the surrounding alleys, where we can meet the audience directly in public space.

Peddling challenges the market system and acts as a peaceful counterforce to its order. In doing so it lets citizens reclaim the public sphere; it is a socially engaged form of creativity that resists formal market structures. It should be said, though, that the system has at times used this same practice as a pretext for oppression.

In this project four artists — Sara Borujeni, Yaser Rajabali, Majid Ziaei and Parsa Kamehkhosh — took up the theme of the hand and made a series of objects and sculptures to be peddled to the public during the 8th Tehran National Sculpture Biennial. Each artist brought their own collection: Up to Fourteen Years Old by Sara Borujeni, Introduction to the Anthropology of Hunting by Yaser Rajabali, Try to Enjoy Watching It by Majid Ziaei and National Pickle by Parsa Kamehkhosh.

The Farsi word dastforushi — peddling — is built from dast, meaning hand, and forushi, from the verb “to sell”.

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