Vandals over da bridge

A text from an 'other' who sees no connection to anything within themselves.

Translation of the text in the invitation screenshot:

July and August 2017 vanals over da bridage [Vandals over da bridge]. Our silent friends have gone on screen; they haven't been filmed. They have been placed in a visible space. I invite you to watch the real sprayers of the city in the basement of New Media Projects P.S: 1. You are not facing the graffiti of the city of Tehran. 2. This project is constantly changing

Report of the sub-branch of Mapping Karimkhan or "Karimkhan; Mapping recent cultural and artistic changes in the heart of Tehran". New Media Society's project room, starting from Friday, July 7, 2017, from 5 to 9 PM.

*This is/is not a report. *A tribute to Amirali Ghasemi with all his unknowns.

Author: Fou.

Prelouge

Everyone has seen the world to their own extent, and everyone has their own story. Let's put our stories on the table and see who has what!. Who went where?. Who saw what?. Let's look at our connection points again!.

We often visit places that, if we hadn't, we wouldn't be who we are today. I, too, one day out of the blue, went somewhere because I liked something that wasn't available anywhere else, and this feeling occurred to me many times. I was 24 or maybe 25.

I don't want to speak outside the scope of this report; I want to talk about a specific exhibition at New Media Projects, which was serving as a direct portal to an independent art space in Iran/Tehran. Before that, I had been to various places and had different experiences, and now, when I look back at my past, I am very happy with the things I did there, and after that day, I saw myself as part of a group, part of a....

It was a transitional space, I can call it a "trans" space, fluid. I was always against the formal/official spaces of the Iranian galleries, but there, I saw different people with different perspectives coming and going; What's the harm if we believe in plurality!. If the ideology is not for seeking to dominate or to carve out a share for itself. May the spaces as such create a movement (with all its unknown connections). It causes no harm. I saw people who belonged nowhere. They found a space to exist there, a refuge. With all the naivety I had and I have, I was a good observer!.

I loved "New Media Project" because it offered a place that was like no other.

My job is excavation. Amirali told me, "Give a report." But my mind doesn't work like that, so here you are not faced with a mere, dry, transparent, and straightforward report text. Until today, December 11, 2025, I never looked back to see where this started!. – Start here means showing to an art audience, not starting an artwork. This report that is not a report is the first part of the exhibition-trilogy. – If you don't understand it, it's also okay –.

New Media Projects

Before starting, you need to know this: the space for art in this cat-shaped map [referring to the map of Iran] is very small. Maybe as small as the size of the 60s/70s in New York, or no, I don't know! Better not to compare. Just trust me that it IS small. You should know that the art space of Iran in 2025 is much more backward than other parts of the world. Although there are always exceptions.

Until that day when X uploaded an open call "On Paper - Unnamed" on Instagram, I hadn't heard the name New Media Society, and this call was interesting to me!. It was interesting because at that time I always had a problem with the enthusiasm of my friends who went to galleries solely because of the "artist's title" and their fame, and this time everything was different. – I couldn't understand that enthusiasm and passion at first. Later, I understood that the main issue was who did this work. Where did they do it and so on.... Today, I appreciate a combination of both views because "in-betweenness" is the closest state to understanding - I entered the space with an envelope containing two or three works.

The boy in front of me said "Hello, I am Amirali Ghasemi." Fou: "Hello." New Media was a place "outside the official art scene," a place for working, learning, talking, talking, talking, and a friendly collective space – later I realized, or rather I should say even back then, in my naivety, I saw and understood things, though not as clearly as today: that a large volume of those people were there to "gain/benefit" something or whatever you'd like to call it, and today I might call a vast multitude of those artists/activists "share-seekers.".

Seeking a share not for art, not out of honesty in art, and not even for humanity, but to gain a position for themselves, not to "reclaim space from the 'evil'" but to "appropriate it for themselves." Pay attention: "themselves." Thinking about it is painful, though of course, my opinion and feelings don't matter at all, and everyone has their own goals and life. If I wanted to address this topic, the result would be a multi-volume, endless, and fruitless book, and certainly beyond patience, so let's not get sidetracked. I have to write a report!

Mapping Karimkhan or "Karimkhan; Mapping recent cultural and artistic changes in the heart of Tehran."

Even though it's enjoyable, I will skip a lot of things – [The time pressure, becames the factor for not explaining a lot here because, as always, I postponed everything to the last minute] – I only have a few hours to submit the report, so from here on I will write in fast-forward and, unlike usual, skip almost all the photos and go step by step.

Gentrification or the Gentrification Project (working title).

The whole debate was about this: how we perceive our surroundings – a specific place on the map, which is Karimkhan neighbourhood– and how it changes shape?. Shortly after entering, I was added to the first group: sometime between May 10 and May 13, 2017. The start of this current goes back to slightly before May 2. These meetings had started with fourteen people before me, and when I entered, some of them were no longer there. Everyone had an opinion, various meetings were held, and I was a newcomer who participated in almost all of those meetings. It was enjoyable; different people with different approaches talking about a single issue. Before this, I hadn't experienced it in a relatively public space; it was always in homes, behind closed doors, with specific and mostly like-minded people.

Mapping Karimkhan.

The program was moving forward. I was no longer a newcomer. A second group was formed on December 4, 2017. Everything had taken shape, the members were specified, and everyone joined hands to move a task forward. The form and shape of the project gradually materialized after consecutive conversations. We were fewer in number but talented and interested.

Before the emergence of the vandals

Our plans were complete, the exhibition day was set. Me, Amirali, and someone else went to the street. Who was it?. I don't remember, maybe we were three or even four people. We went out on the street. It was dusk. Why did we go to the street?. Because I had made a stencil, we went to the street with a spray can and a handmade stencil. I remember well I sprayed the first stencil on the asphalt under the bridge, on the southeast side of the Karimkhan bridge, on the asphalt of Gharani street - if you looked up, you would see the bridge, and facing you was Mirza-ye Shirazi street - but the most beautiful stencil was the one that went under the bridge; a place where pedestrians passed. I sprayed it in a spot that was fine for my height, but anyone taller than me had to duck to pass under the bridge. Advertising the exhibition in the rawest format possible - I hope I have a photo of it, but it's unlikely to find it..

Vandals under the bridge.

You can read any text about the Mapping Karimkhan project, and in none of them will you see my name. Only one or two lines in a magazine mention my name, which I am truly happy about because it is closer to my personality. But I gained something in that basement that truly never repeated itself until today. I don't know how it happened that my little intervention also became a sub-branch of this project. The project had been divided into main and secondary parts. The main project specifically addressed gentrification, and the secondary project was my exhibition in the basement of the New Media Project.

The only thing I have in my memory is this: Tehran - 2017 - Hot summer - H's house on Qasr al-Dasht street - In bed - Asleep. The phone rang: "Bring your work." - "What?" - "Bring your work." And just like that, the basement became mine! - It wasn't a real basement; the basement wasn't a basement. Perhaps I should call that "space", a corridor which went down a few steps from the yard and connected the small kitchen space to the outside world; it had a temporary use as a storage room. a space of one and a half meters wide - I call it a basement because for me it really was a basement.

In the same basement where, the first time I entered, an old analog TV was on, playing an artist's video showing call girls amidst changing satellite channels, and I was the happiest person to see this in the middle of nowhere in downtown Tehran. Poor little Fou, poor all of us. In a storage room/corridor that was underground.

Everything moved fast. I chose the name of the work with a boy older than me who hung out in the Iranian hip-hop scene. His work was music. "Vandal" was my choice, and "da" instead of "the" was his choice.

My work kicked off in two parts: As you entered the old building at building number three, you would hear loud music. You would pass the yard, pass the garden to the left, go down the stairs, and enter a dark corridor where the source of the sound was coming from, where noisy music welcomed you. On the right side of the long corridor - maybe about three meters long - was a paper on the wall that wasn't visible in the dark, and many people didn't even notice it. That piece of paper - I prefer not to say what it was - was a reference to the experience of living in H's house on Sanaei street and observing the events and the life of young artists of that period. A storm and the shape of a whirlpool were in that image, which also appeared in the video. What was the video?.

Going further, about two or three steps into an alcove, there was a sofa. If you sat on the sofa, you would confront the second and main part of the work. In front of you, photos of stains, scribbles, tags, broken glass, and things we usually pass by without noticing were projected onto the wall. Black and white. Over those images, photographs that were also appearing in the same video, were added to the wall layer by layer, printed on colored paper, throughout the duration of the exhibition, and collages were worked onto some of them. The projector frame was next to the storage tools, and the composition and arrangement were different each day from the day before.

In the city streets, a thick layer of paint covers the graffiti, but here, the graffiti was added day by day. I placed the sofa so they could lounge in front of the work. In front of the work, a constantly changing work, to sit and peep at the walls. I won't explain further because I can't summarize it. Besides, words do not convey the theme of an artwork. Just like that day when I didn't write a statement, and this became my winning card.

I talked to a lot of people, probably over 200 people. I saw artists I couldn't see anywhere else. I clearly cannot talk or write to you about this weird exhibition and exchange; maybe another time.