Printing Machine

Project Overview

Printing Machine is a simple four-station mechanical press that participants operate entirely themselves: each station prints one colour, and the participant walks away with their own four-colour print. It is installed outdoors, in front of Amaanatdaari, with no staff present, and runs continuously day and night for the duration of each iteration.

The work was first installed during the Nowruz holidays of 1403 (March 2024) at Amaanatdaari's location in Rasht's Saadi Bazaar, and aimed to return each Nowruz since with a different artist and theme. In October 2025 it travelled to Tehran for Bazar Art Books at Didar Gallery as its third iteration. Across its editions it has gradually settled into the rhythm of a recurring Nowruz tradition for Amaanatdaari.

Context & Site

Amaanatdaari sits inside one of the small bazaars of Rasht, close to Shahrdari (Municipality) Square. During Nowruz the square fills with people, and the bazaar happens to host one of the nearest public restrooms in the area. Foot traffic past Amaanatdaari is therefore constant and largely incidental: many of those who pass are not coming to look at art, and may not be expecting an art encounter at all.

The placement of the machine outdoors, without staff and without an entry threshold, was a response to this condition. By moving the work to the street side of the space rather than holding it behind a window or door, the project let the encounter remain on the passerby's own terms — short and optional. The Tehran iteration shifted setting but kept the underlying logic. Bazar Art Books is an experimental artist book fair whose atmosphere shares something with Amaanatdaari's own everyday environment in Rasht.

Motivations & Questions

The project's starting point was practical and situated. Amaanatdaari wanted a way to be present during the busiest tourist days of the Rasht calendar without disrupting the rhythm of people who were simply passing through the bazaar. The proximity of one of the few public restrooms in the area meant a steady stream of passers-by, many of whom had no intention of engaging with art at all. The challenge was to offer a short, optional, attractive encounter that could meet them at the threshold of their existing route, available at any hour, and that did not require their preparation, attention, or commitment beyond curiosity.

This sat alongside a broader stance about where art should take place. From the initiators' position, the Iranian visual arts scene has remained largely distant from the urban spaces in which most people actually move. Across editions, the project also held to a working understanding of its own relationship to the audience: that what was being offered was an unmediated, low-threshold interaction rather than a structured collective process. Amaanatdaari has been explicit that they see this kind of work as interactive rather than participatory in the strict sense.

Conditions & Negotiations

The most significant constraint was the absence of any financial support, which shaped both the scale of what could be built and the project's exposure to wear and damage in public use. In response, the project worked with simplicity and reproducibility: a mechanical mechanism light enough to be maintained, replaced, or rebuilt by the initiators themselves, and a deliberate keeping-small of the structure around it. Amaanatdaari has described its own operating principle as "small in size, large in standard".

Documentation

Collaborators & Support

Printing Machine is initiated and maintained by Amaanatdaari, curated across its editions by Emad Anoushirvani and Mohsen Jafaripour. Each iteration has worked with a different set of contributors: Aysa Rashid, Kavosh Zhaleh, Mitra Soltani, Malahat Moheb-khah, and Kamand Samimi for the first edition; Yasi Mossadegh for the second; and Amirali Ghasemi, Saba Hassanzadeh, and Katayoun Masoudi for the third, presented in Tehran in partnership with Bazar Art Books at Didar Gallery.

The project is self-funded by Amaanatdaari. At Bazar Art Books in October 2025, posters and prints were offered in exchange for a small contribution from visitors to cover shipping and production costs.

About the Artist

Amaanatdaari developed Printing Machine as part of its ongoing programme of alternative and experimental projects in Rasht. Amaanatdaari is an independent, artist-run space located in one of the local bazaars of Rasht. It has been active for over two years, with a focus on exhibiting alternative and experimental projects.

Email: amaanatdaari.rasht@gmail.com Instagram: @amaanatdaari