White Cubes
Fatemeh Fazael Ardakani
- Period
- 19–23 November 2018
- Location
- Yazd
Project Overview
White Cubes was a site-specific installation that unfolded across four nights on the connected rooftops of Yazd's historical neighborhood. Fifteen white mosquito nets — borrowed from the neighbors — were installed in the spaces where, until a generation ago, families slept, prayed, and gathered through the summer nights. The piece reactivated an object that had once been infrastructure for daily life in the region and asked what kind of situation it could hold today.
The installation produced what the artist describes as "a situation": a private space situated within a collective space. Visitors entered the nets to pray, rest, talk, experience an intimate atmosphere, converse, or simply pause. The nets themselves — semi-transparent, almost private but never enclosed — held this ambiguity intact.
Context & Site
The connected rooftops of Yazd's old neighborhoods are not only an architectural feature but a record of a way of life. Through the summer, families would sleep on the roofs in mosquito nets — pashe-band — that offered shelter from insects and the night heat, and that allowed for privacy across an otherwise open and shared horizon. The roofs were a continuous social terrain: visible to anyone who looked up from a neighboring building, but soft and unspoken in how they were inhabited.
The installation was developed at the invitation of Persbook 8: Re-texture (بازبافت), curated by Neda Darzi with co-curator Negar Farajiani, and supported by the Yazd Visual Arts Association. Choosing the rooftops over a gallery was integral to the work: the question the artist was raising could not be relocated. The site was both the medium and the ground.
Participation & Process
The artist did not script how people should engage with the work. The nets were installed, and visitors arrived over four nights and used them according to their own mood and need.
I deliberately did not predetermine exactly how people should interact with the work. Thus, I witnessed everyone using the space according to their personal needs, from praying to friendly conversations and even intimate experiences.
A person would step inside one of the nets to pray. A group of friends gathered in another to rest and talk. A couple shared an intimate moment (a kiss) and afterward described it to the artist. Tourists and other artists slipped in to sit for a while. Each entry into the net became a small reframing of what it meant to be alone in a public space, or together inside a private one.
The artist later articulated the conditions that shaped how the work made participation possible:
First, the revival of a shared memory through a familiar element like a mosquito net. This old element itself was a communication medium that, without the need for words, invited people to converse and recall shared memories. Second, creating a multi-functional space that gave the audience freedom of action… Third, blurring the boundary between private and public space, which also existed in the vernacular architecture of Yazd… Fourth, involving the community in the creation of the work from the very beginning. When I borrowed the mosquito nets from the neighbors, I inadvertently involved them in the process of creating the work. This took the work out of the artist's monopoly and turned it into a collective project. And finally, creating a direct dialogue with the urban fabric that separates the project from the gallery space… instead of creating a purely visual object, I created a 'situation' where people played an active role. Art in this project was not a commodity, but a platform for shared experience.
The act of borrowing was itself a structural choice. Asking neighbors for their nets meant the work began as a small chain of permissions, conversations, and acknowledgments, well before any visitor arrived.
Motivations & Questions
Relying on the simplicity of form and the cultural weight of the material, the installation posed a set of questions:
For the artist, distancing herself from galleries that operate within the art economy — and seeking other forms of connection with audiences and social participation — was also part of the motivation behind the project.
How can a possibility for participation, dialogue, and confrontation with the city be created from an everyday element? How do private and public boundaries shift in urban life? Can collective memory be activated by summoning a familiar element? How does participation occur when it is not prescribed?
Conditions & Negotiations
Because the project had no production funding, the artist could not commission or make the fifteen mosquito nets from scratch. Instead, she entered into conversations with neighbors and local residents to borrow theirs. The borrowing itself became part of the work — in asking for the nets, she was also opening a conversation about the return of this disappearing object back into use, at least for the duration of the installation.
A further tension arose around a single image. Inside one of the nets, a couple had kissed; the moment was photographed, and the photograph circulated on social media after being shared by the artist and other artists associated with the project. Shortly after, a member of the Persbook team requested that the image be removed and that it not appear on any further platform. Later, the same photo was published in a book, but at the artist's request, without direct reference to the name "Persbook" and in a modified format, so that both the work could be preserved and further confrontations could be avoided.
Documentation
Collaborators & Support
In collaboration with Persbook 8: Re-texture, the 8th Persbook Contemporary Art Annual of Iran (Curator Neda Darzi and Co-curator Negar Farajiani), with the support of the Yazd Visual Arts Association.
The project was self-funded by the artist; the mosquito nets were borrowed rather than purchased. Persbook covered the artist's accommodation and food during the festival period. No production budget was raised from institutional sources.
Re-reading
Further Resources
Rayhaneh Mirjahani, "Retexture: Traces of Tradition and Contemporary Concerns", Konesh (in Persian).
Pamela Karimi, Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice.
About the Artist
Fatemeh Fazael Ardakani is an artist who lives and works between Tehran and Ardakan. This constant commuting between two distinct spaces has shaped her perspective on the notion of space and time. She has turned the boundaries between the personal world and collective questions into the main arena of her artistic work, creating projects that are not born in the studio, but in the context of real life and interstitial spaces.
In her works, she utilizes familiar and culturally loaded materials. For her, incorporating these materials is not merely an artistic medium but an intermediary for creating a dialogue with history and society. In her works, the audience is not just a spectator, but an active partner in the creation of meaning. By creating situations where the audience plays an active role — through entering the space, touching, and even tasting parts of the artwork — Fazael Ardakani emphasizes the importance of this direct and unmediated participation. For her, each project is a response to the question of how one can both live and think critically in a world full of contradictions. Her work is a continuous search, not for offering definitive answers, but for raising better and more meaningful questions.
Instagram: @fatemeh.fazayel Website: www.fatemehfazayel.com
This entry was prepared based on a conversation with Fatemeh Fazael Ardakani, and edited in collaboration with the artist.