EVOLUTION Monday 13 April: 18:30-21:00 Private View Followed by Drinks & Canapés Exhibition Opening Hours Monday-Friday 10:00-18:00 14/04/2015-24/04/2015 Evolution is a multi-disciplinary exhibition showcasing various aspects of Iranian art, architecture and culture across different periods in time. Bringing together academics, artists and architects, this show spanning over two weeks will be launched by Danny Whitehead, director of British Council Iran, with a reflection on the UK-Iran Season of Culture. The event will consist of lectures by studio INTEGRATE s director Mehran Gharleghi, AECOM s Amin Sadeghy, the Courtauld Institute of Art s Asian Art scholar Dr. Sussan Babaie, curator and critic Vali Mahlouji, writer and journalist Kamin Mohammadi as well as an installation by film-maker Mania Akbari in collaboration with British sculptor Douglas White, and a sonic landscape by musicians Roxana and Peter Vilk (GOL). Evolution aims to open up the dialogue on Iranian art and architecture to a wider and diverse international audience. The show will run from the 13th to the 24th of April 2015 in Asia House, London, as a key part of the British Council Iran s UK-Iran Season of Culture. The exhibition will include printed drawings, physical models, illustrations and photographs followed by lectures and a round table in which the participants will explore the evolution of the architectural scene in Iran by showcasing carefully selected buildings and infrastructures ranging from historical to contemporary examples that are currently reshaping Iran s urban reality. Asia House, 63 New Cavendish St, London W1G 7LP Symposia In partnership with Tuesday 14 April: 18:30-21:00 Evolution: Architecture 18:30- Daniel Whitehead 18:45- Mehran Gharleghi 19:15- Dr. Sussan Babaie 19:45- Kamin Mohammadi 20:15- Amin Sadeghy 20:45- Q&A Followed by a Reception Thursday 23 April: 18:30-21:00 Evolution: Art 18:30- Pamela Kember/ Mariam Neza: Asia House 18:45- Mehran Gharleghi 19:00- Mania Akbari & Douglas White 19:30- Roxana Vilk 20:00- Dr. Sussan Babaie 20:30- Round Table with the speakers and Khosrow Hassanzadeh, moderated by Mehran Gharleghi Followed by a Reception 2 3
Mehran Gharleghi studio INTEGRATE Mehran Gharleghi is an architect, researcher, designer and the curator of Evolution. Mehran s work employs sophisticated design and analysis tools along with rigorous studies in culture, materiality and environmental issues. He holds a BArch from IUST and a MArch from the Architectural Association. He has worked for distinguished firns, lectured and taught worldwide: he currently teaches at the Architectural Association (AA). He is the founder of studio INTEGRATE, established with Amin Sadeghy in 2011. In a short span the studio has already won prestigious awards and gained international recognition. Exhibitions include the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, PAD London, 100% Design, WIRED 2014, Design Shanghai and the London Design Festival. www.studiointegrate.com IRAN PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: TOWARDS A SYNTHESIS OF AESTHETICS, CULTURE AND PERFORMANCE Today, Iran s ethnically diverse population is estimated at above 75 million people with more than 4 million diaspora living outside the country. Chitgar Tower, Tehran (2010) Has rapid urbanization, coupled with trends of globalization, considerably transformed the sophisticated and context specific Iranian architecture? Has its history of integrated expression and functionality been swiped away without trace, like elsewhere? Are there one, or several discernible traits that characterise Iranian architecture today, and if so what sets them apart from other architectures? Starting with the illustration of remarkable historical architectures, Mehran Gharleghi s talk will subsequently elaborate on his recent research on contemporary Iranian architecture, trying to elucidate what similarities and dissimilarities can tell us about the impact of context? And what can be learned from a first glimpse at Iran s past, present and future architectures? 4 5
Danny Whitehead British Council Danny Whitehead is the British Council s Country Director Iran. He has worked in international cultural relations for seventeen years in Asia and Africa, focussing on education, language, and culture in development. His academic research and publications explore language and hegemony in the context of international development. Danny also works in the performing arts, as a playwright, director, and stage manager. www.britishcouncil.org Sussan Babaie The Courtauld Institute of Art Sussan Babaie joined The Courtauld Institute of Art in 2013 to take up a newly established post teaching on the arts of Iran and Islam. Born in Iran, she attended the University of Tehran s Faculty of Fine Arts (Graphic Design) until the revolution of 1979 when she moved to the USA where she received her Master s degree in Italian Renaissance and American Arts, and her PhD at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, with a focus on the arts of Islam. She has taught at Smith College and the University of Michigan in America, and as the Allianz Visiting Professor at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Her publications include Persian kingship and architecture: Strategies of power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavis (2015), Shirin Neshat (2013), and Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran (2004). She is the author of the award-winning Isfahan and its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran (2008). The architecture of cultural relations building trust through understanding REFRACTED SURFACES AND WATER ELEMENTS IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF ISFAHAN The last 150 years of relations between the UK and Iran have been characterised by mutual mistrust; cultural relations are now among the strongest tools for developing understanding and rebuilding trust. Despite the challenges presented by the recent lack of diplomatic ties between the UK and Iran, cultural connections between the countries remain rich and deep. It is for this reason that the architecture of cultural relations the arts, education, and languages is a powerful means of developing understanding, and a framework for rebuilding trust. The British Council is proud to partner Evolution through our UK-Iran Season of Culture. The season will strengthen opportunities for greater cultural engagement, improve mutual understanding, and increase trust. It will spotlight the rich and dynamic culture of the modern Islamic Republic of Iran and the UK, and the potential across the cultural relations spectrum. Recent complete drying of Zayanderud, the river that runs through Isfahan, would have been unimaginable only a few decades ago. Water, guided through its subterranean sources, the madi systems, or the river and its originating sources, constituted a quintessential aspect of Isfahan s engineering of optimal conditions for urban life and leisure. Bridges of Isfahan connected urban arteries and extra-urban trade routes but they were also and especially designed to serve as spaces of sociability and public entertainment. The river was never navigable but with ingenious engineering of retractable dams in its bridges, the river could become a temporary lake or its flow of water regulated in order to irrigate nearby gardens and the agricultural fields beyond the city. This talk focuses on the 17th-century bridges and riverfront palaces and mansions as architectural acculturations of that precious resource and its visual strategies of seeing and being seen. 6 7
Khosrow Hassanzadeh Kamin Mohammadi Khosrow Hassanzadeh fought in the Iran-Iraq war before studying at the faculty of painting of Tehran s Mojtama s-e-honar University between 1989 and 1991. He then studied Persian Literature at the Azad University while being given private courses from the artist Aydeen Aghdashlou. He began exhibiting in Tehran in 1991 at the Jamshidiyeh Gallery. He subsequently had shows at the Barg Gallery in 1994, the Bokhara Gallery in 1995, and more recently at the Seyhoun Gallery in Tehran. Internationally, Hassanzadeh had a solo exhibition at Diorama Arts in London in 1999 which introduced his work to public institutions. His paintings can be found at the British Museum, the World Bank in Washington, DC, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Hassanzadeh has been the subject of several documentaries by Maziar Bahar and the BBC. Kamin Mohammadi is an author, journalist and broadcaster. Born in Iran, she grew up in the UK. As a journalist she has written for, amongst many others, The Times, the Financial Times, Harpers Bazaar, Marie Claire, Condé Nast Traveller, TIME, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Times of India, The Mail on Sunday, Virginia Quarterly Review, Time Out, Vogue and the Guardian. She has been nominated for an Amnesty Human Rights award in the UK, and for a National Magazine Award by ASME in the US. Kamin has authored The Cypress Tree. She has commentated on several television and radio shows, including BBC, Channel Four, Monocle and India s NDTV. She is now a regular presenter of BBC R4 s Four Thought. www.kamin.co.uk Bernardo Conti pahlavan - ashoura: a critical reflection TURNING TRADITION INSIDE OUT Khosrow Hassanzadeh will focus on gender and its evolving role in Iran s rapidly changing society. He will exhibit paintings from his Pahlavan series, in which he celebrates the traditional notion of manhood in Iran. Through his illustrations of the Pahlavans (traditional wrestlers), he attempts to preserve the culture of men who were known for their manners, strength and courage. In this series, he reflects on the role of such male figures: in another controversial series called Ashoura, he elaborates on the crucial and often undermined role of women in the Iranian society. The title refers to a patriarchal religious ritual; drawing on this, the artist challenges the dominant social structure by giving women the focal role. An artwork from the Ashoura series will mirror one from the Pahlavan series. How modernity changed Iran s vernacular architecture in Abadan. In 1912, Abadan became the site of the world s biggest oil refinery. Houses were also built, their architecture completely different to the traditional Iranian style. They were Englishstyle houses with the garden on the outside, rather than walled-in traditional dwellings which had their gardens hidden inside. In this talk, I will examine how Iran s experience of modernity started here. Pahlavan series The Cypress Tree (Bloomsbury) 8 9
Amin Sadeghy AECOM Amin Sadeghy is co-founder of studio Integrate architecture and design practice. Amin established studio Integrate with Mehran Gharleghi in 2011. His specialist interests lie in the performance of emergent technologies and local materials. Prior to the launch of studio Integrate, Amin gained valuable experience at Foster + Partners in London, where he worked on a number of internationally acclaimed projects including the Masdar Zero Carbon city in Abu Dhabi, and the Apple Campus headquarters in California. www.aecom.com persian gardens and landscapes While Persian gardens exuded the ideals of a heavenly landscape, they were also the expression of strict environmental performance. Fahadan Cistern, CFD analysis, in collaboration with Mehran Gharleghi and SEA The provision and distribution of water in arid lands and the urge to create more habitable microclimates led Iranians to develop acumen for organizing colossal operations of finding and directing water hidden deep under mountains. The resulting garden pavilions they designed achieved great climatic performance in an adverse landscape. They were comfortable places where architecture overcame a hostile environment. While this reviews the historic outline of Persian garden typologies and their evolution in time and place, it also applies contemporary analytical tools to this type of buildings to measure their performance against solar radiation, wind and temperature. The investigation focuses on the central pavilion within its enclosed garden, in order to understand the synergy between climate, resources and place. Fin Garden, Kashan, Iran - CFD and render, studio INTEGRATE 10 11
Mania Akbari Douglas White Mania Akbari (b. Tehran, 1974) is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, artist, writer, and actress. Her provocative, revolutionary and radical films were recently the subject of retrospectives at the BFI, London (2013), the DFI, Denmark (2014), Oldenburg International Film Festival, Germany (2014) and the Cyprus Film Festival (2014). Her films were screened at festivals around the world and received numerous awards including the German Independence Honorary Award, Oldenberg (2014), Best Film, Digital Section, Venice Film Festival (2004), Nantes Special Public Award Best Film (2007) and Best Director and Best film at Kerala Film Festival (2007), Best Film and Best Actress, Barcelona Film Festival (2007). She also had numerous exhibits around the world in galleries such as Tate Modern in London. Akbari was exiled from Iran and currently lives and works in London, a theme addressed in her latest film, Life May Be (2014), co-directed with Mark Cousins. This film was released at Karlovy Vary Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at Edinburgh International Film Festival (2014) and Asia Pacific Film Festival (2014). Black palm Douglas White (b. Guildford 1977) is a sculptor, known for his use of found objects and materials. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005 he has worked and exhibited across the globe. Recent exhibitions include Splendor Solis, Eden Rock Gallery (2014), Song of the Roustabouts, Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam (2013), New Skin for an Old Ceremony, Paradise Row, London (2011) as well as recent group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, Weltraum, Munich, Ciudade Matarazzo, Sao Paolo (2014), Dairy Art Centre, London (2013), ARoS Museum, Denmark, Fondation EDF, Paris (2010), Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv (2012), City of Prague Gallery, Prague (2012) and Baibakov Fine Arts, Moscow (2009). He was a recipient of the Man Group Drawing Prize (2005) and the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award (2005) and has been shortlisted for the Paul Hamlyn Award (2007), Jerwood Sculpture Prize (2005) and Jerwood Drwaing Prize (2006). His work is held in significant collections both nationally and internationally including the Saatchi Collection, David Roberts, Frank Cohen, Ernst and Young and Simmons & Simmons. He is represented by Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam. What happens when two people meet? Iranian filmmaker Mania Akbari met British sculptor Douglas White in 2014. This film is the first of an ongoing collaboration arising from this meeting, structured as an exchange of film letters between the two artists. White is a sculptor known for his evocative use of found objects and materials. Akbari, a filmmaker renowned for her ruthlessly direct and autobiographical approach, offers a poetic response to these works. The film addresses White s sculptural series Black Palm, made from the exploded carcasses of truck tyres picked up on the roadsides of Central America. Akbari weaves uncanny parallels between these works and the battlefields of the Iran/ Iraq war from her youth. The film is screened alongside evidence of the sculptures themselves, materials and working maquettes. The project speaks of war and destruction, but also of hope and the possibility of renewal. Here we have two artists, separated by language, forging a new and common one. It is a meeting not just of cultures and histories, but also of object and cinema, and exploration of the things we create and the things that create us. Black Palm Black Palm 12 13
Black palm (2014) Short film, Black Palm, Colour, [19.10min] Director & Writer Photography Editing & Sound Design Subtitles Music Mania Akbari Douglas White Michael Gramm Laurent Lecat Paria Kamyab Paria Kamyab Mania Akbari Ehsan Khoshbakht Sadiq Ahangaran Black Palm The chant Oh Army of Imam Mahdi Be Ready is sung by Sadiq Ahangaran. Its aim was to emotionally prepare young people between the ages of 15 and 20 for war during the Iran-Iraq conflict. With Douglas White & Mania Akbari www.douglas-mania.com 14 15
Roxana Vilk Peter Vilk Roxana is an award-winning filmmaker, theatremaker and musician. She is singer and co-producer with the UK/Iranian Jazz band GOL. She has made film, music and theatre works internationally including in Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia Herzegovina, France and Norway. Her film Tehran Backyard was nominated for a Royal Television Award and she co-wrote the drama feature film Trouble Sleeping, which won a Scottish BAFTA award. She produced and directed a six part TV series called Poets of Protest for Al Jazeera English Artscape series. She was commissioned by Reel Festivals and The British Council to create experimental short films in response to the words of Iraqi poets, filmed in Iraq in 2013. In 2014, she made a new film for the BBC called Iranian Enough?, exploring cultural identity through a personal lens. She was commissioned by the Commonwealth Year of Culture to make 8 artistic films for the Commonwealth games in Glasgow. In 2014, she was nominated for a Margaret Tait Award for her artistic work. Roxana is represented by Jo Probitts Arts Management. www.roxanavilk.com Davide Metzger Peter is an award-winning musician, sound designer and producer. He has over 18 years of professional experience on a wide variety of international music projects having worked in Iran, Bosnia Herzegovina, Gambia and Turkey. He has composed music and sound design for awardwinning film and theatre projects including the BAFTA award-winning experimental film Lo Que Me Queda De Vos by Ling Lee, Around the World in 80 Days at the Traverse theatre, Lung Ha s Theatre co, The Unconquered, Brits Off Broadway, Poets of Protest TV series on Al Jazeera English and the Composing The Commonwealth series of artistic experimental films for the Commonwealth Games 2014. He has a BA (Hons) in Psychology specialising in Music Psychology and an MSc in Sound Design from Edinburgh University focusing on improvising with live sampling and percussion soundscapes. In 2014, together with Roxana, they produced GOL s third album Strange Times. www.petevilk.com FREE AS A BIRD Ian Jacobs GOL, Strange Times Https://Golmusic.Bandcamp.Com Laurent Galbrin Roxana Vilk and Peter Vilk, the founding members of the UK/Iranian band GOL, have been commissioned to create a unique sound design and music installation Free as a Bird as part of the Evolution exhibition at Asia House in London. They will be creating bespoke real time composition software influenced by the architectural concepts, using colour, shape and contour to generate sonic resultants that combine with elements of songwriting, contemporary beats and atmospheric moods to create a unique sonic landscape for the exhibition. They will be drawing on their extensive sound archive recorded across Iran (Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm island and Tehran). In particular they will be exploring the myths and music associated with the wind in Iran, such as the Zar ceremony from southern Iran, as well as the geometrical patterns in Iranian architecture. 16 17
18 19 Raquel Ribbe - image from AZADI, an experimental dance/music piece by Roxana Vilk and GOL