#Mappingkarimkhan 9 years on

I encountered the term gentrification 9 years before Mapping Karimkhan began, around 2008, while I was visiting a suburb of Rotterdam, a neighbourhood affected by gentrification, where we were discussing bringing the international roaming biennial of Tehran to Rotterdam after Istanbul and Berlin. Our focus in Berlin was on how artists inadvertently contribute to the gentrification process, together with players who intentionally push for it. In Berlin, we created a pirate radio and put together a panel discussion, and one of our main venues was a squat in the heart of Berlin's Kreuzberg.

Now in Spring 2026, almost 9 years have passed since summer 2017, when New Media Projects opened its doors to an open lab on interconnected subjects of art and gentrification. Growing up in Tehran in the 90s, I witnessed massive urban transformations, large-scale constructions, and highways cutting through neighbourhoods as a post-war solution for fast-paced reconstruction and development. These transformations were applied with force and top-down, without considering their consequences and impacts on local populations. While the capital's middle class was promised more spaces for culture and leisure, it was often people living in the periphery, and those whose neighbourhoods were trapped in between, who paid the price with displacement and push-outs.

Karimkhan Ave, in contrast, was one of the newer neighbourhoods to be developed in the heart of Tehran in the late Pahlavi era; some documents refer to the demolishing of an Armenian slum and the building of residential high-rises. A business hub, a church, and many banks and government buildings were to be built around the main street, across both the south and north areas of Karimkhan Boulevard.

With the introduction of the traffic zone to Tehran's city center, the area changed drastically, shifting toward the more official and commercial, and growing dead in the evenings — in contrast with life before the revolution, which had included bars, clubs, and boutiques serving locals, tourists, and foreigners living near the former American Embassy.

The living room, which was the main area of the project space and was often used for talks and screenings, turned into a lab for unconventional mapping, recording narratives, and raising awareness of gentrification.

The research area is located between Motahari Ave. and Taleghani Street, and Mofatteh to Larestan Street, and its continuation along north Hafez Street. A hand-drawn map on the wall is accompanied by a small desk with threads and pins, paper strips, and pens. The project members had already started the map and printed out some of the existing galleries, cultural centers, and bookstores, using color-coded threads and pins. Visitors were invited to add a pin if they lived in the area, or knew of related places that once existed or still do, but are omitted from official maps.

A small library was set up with related books and a few printouts from texts addressing the area's history and the earlier gentrification of the 1960s, and an old-fashioned TV was installed to show a documentary by Abbas Kiarostami — Fellow Citizen. Interviews were shot in the backyard on one or two blue armchairs, with interviewees from different generations and professions: filmmakers, artists, designers, architects, and theater directors, as well as office workers and young people. These interviews were also played back uncut on another TV screen in the second room just before the backyard, inviting more people to sit and talk.

During opening hours, project members handed these out to visitors while explaining the project and the instructions on how to read and interact with the map on the wall. An experimental one-page questionnaire was handed out with a map printed on its reverse side. It read:

Do you live or work in this area? Have you noticed any changes in this area over the past four years? Improvements in social services, environmental health, urban issues, or changes in the residents' lifestyle? Do you consider this area suitable for walking at night? For what reason do you visit this area? What mode of transportation do you use — public, private, or a combination of both? If you live in this area, do you observe any changes in rent prices or daily expenses specific to this area? Can you procure all your necessities (ranging from everyday items to work tools and cultural goods) within this area? Is your work or activity related to culture and art? Please explain. To what extent are you aware of the cultural and artistic facilities in this area? How do you find out about cultural programs? Do you have any plans to relocate, or to continue living in this area or the city center? What factors do you think contribute to the popularity or trendiness of this area?

The answered questionnaires and filled maps later proved useful when New Media Society was engaged in a public intervention project, together with Animation Experiment collective, to organize Tehran Animation Walk in downtown Tehran, which also included the Karimkhan neighbourhood.

Mapping Karimkhan was not created in a vacuum, but as a result of many previous talks, debate sessions, urban workshops, and micro-interventions organised by Parkingallery Projects, New Media Society, Aaran Projects, and a few other collectives such as Rokhdad-e Tazeh Documentary, Sarkhoshi Magazine, and various urban activists and concerned citizens.

There is an extensive essay on Mapping Karimkhan written by Aroosha Moshtagh and Amirali Ghasemi, printed in issue number 5 of Tazarv Magazine, edited by Pouria Jahanshad.

The very same fate that the Mapping Karimkhan team was predicting for cultural spaces, galleries, and artist studios also happened to New Media Projects. After years of interruption and social distancing during COVID-19, New Media Projects moved to a small office apartment in 2022 with its archive and library, and since 2023 has gone completely online, operating without a physical space. This happened because of rising rents, the high costs of maintaining an old building, and the owners' wish to sell the property.