Enghelab Azadi / Azadi Enghelab
Nastaran Safaei
- Period
- 2017
- Location
- Tehran
Project Overview
Enghelab Azadi / Azadi Enghelab is a participatory video performance staged directly in the public spaces of Tehran. Dressed entirely in black, the artist walked a ten-kilometer route connecting Enghelab (meaning "Revolution") Square and Azadi (meaning "Freedom") Square, making the round trip while carrying a tray of nazri dates to offer to passersby. Nazri refers to traditional food offerings prepared and distributed as a devotional act, often to mark a period of mourning or to honor the deceased. Offering dates from a hand-held tray remains one of its most recognizable street variations.
Passersby reacted to the gesture in various ways: some accepted a date and recited a Fatiha (the opening verse of the Qur'an, typically spoken for the dead), some stopped to chat, while others simply walked past without acknowledging the interaction.
Context & Site
The urban corridor stretching from Enghelab Square to Azadi Square carries a heavy symbolic resonance tied to its literal names — enghelab meaning revolution, and azadi meaning freedom. Within Iran's collective memory, this specific thoroughfare has served as the baseline ground for historic political shifts, mass protests, and societal transformations. Staging the performance along this precise route injected the artwork directly into the historical memory of the city.
The performance unfolded entirely on footpaths at street level, embedded directly within the heavy flow of daily foot traffic. The artist did not operate on an isolated stage, but within the exact environment that residents navigate every day. The varying density of the crowds along the route dictated the actual pace of the performance; the tray of dates emptied rapidly in congested areas and slowed down in quieter stretches. The piece was produced as one of two videos comprising the broader series The Story of the Streets — a body of work documenting the artist's personal relationship with Tehran — and was later exhibited at the Aaran Projects gallery. The recorded video stands as the definitive form of the work rather than an external document of it.
Participation & Process
The performance spanned a full day as the artist navigated the ten-kilometer Enghelab–Azadi round trip. Her attire was deliberately calculated: a plain black manteau and matching headscarf that mirrored traditional mourning clothes while remaining ordinary enough to blend into the crowd. She carried a large shoulder bag packed with extra dates to continuously refill the tray as it emptied along the route.
The core of public participation relied on a deeply familiar cultural script: offering Nazri dates on a city sidewalk. Because this gesture is an everyday element of Iranian urban culture, it triggers a predictable social response — taking a date and quietly reciting a Fatiha for someone who has passed away. In this performance, however, the identity of the deceased was intentionally withheld. By accepting the offering, passersby stepped into a shared act of mourning without knowing exactly what loss they were commemorating. The diverse reactions — ranging from brief, curious conversations to total indifference — became structural components of the final piece.
Motivations & Questions
The project grew directly out of the artist's complex personal relationship with Tehran, the city where she was born and raised:
Selecting Enghelab and Azadi squares was a direct engagement with their naming and their place in the public consciousness. Embedded within this spatial choice was a sharp question: where do these streets and plazas, which once stood as active monuments to societal transformation, revolution, and liberty, stand today? The artist staged an act of public grief where the true subject remained unseen. In the resulting video, passersby unconsciously shared a collective moment of mourning — for the city, for revolution, and for freedom.
My relationship with this city is black and white and grey. I love it, I hate it, and at times I become indifferent to it.
Conditions & Negotiations
Filming a performance in a sensitive urban environment required securing an official public filming permit. To navigate this, the artist drafted a project proposal that framed the action strictly around the public custom of nazr and distributing devotional food offerings. Without emphasizing this traditional cultural context, the likelihood of obtaining official clearance would have been minimal.
Her clothing choices served a similar tactical purpose: the plain black outfit ensured she appeared entirely unremarkable to authorities and onlookers alike, keeping her presence low-profile. Utilizing Nazri dates operated on the same practical logic — relying on a universally accepted street gesture to mask a symbolic act of mourning whose true subject lay elsewhere.
Documentation
Collaborators & Support
The performance was documented with the help of Farzad Shafaei, who served as videographer, and Ashkan Mostafalou, who edited the final video presentation. The project received no institutional or grant funding and was financed entirely out of pocket by the artist.
Further Resources
Project page on the artist's website.
About the Artist
Nastaran Safaei was born in Tehran in 1983. She completed an associate degree in graphic design at Soore University of Applied Sciences in 2004 and has been an active member of the Iranian Sculptors Association since 2007. Her professional visual arts career began in 2001. She has since held fifteen solo exhibitions across Iran, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, and has participated in over a hundred group exhibitions worldwide.
Her artwork has been featured at international platforms including the Slick Art Fair Paris (2010), Art Basel Switzerland (2014, 2015), Code Art Fair Copenhagen (2017), Art Abu Dhabi (2016), and Menart Paris (2024). She has completed artist residencies at the Erikse Foundation (Lucerne), Villa Korysum (Berlin), the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and Hangar (Lisbon). She currently works out of her independent studio in Tehran.
Website: nastaransafaei.com
This entry was prepared based on the artist's account and accompanying project materials.