Nazgol Ansarinia: Pools and Voids

Hosted in the gallery’s venue in Via Stradella 7, the show brings together a new body of work conceived by Nazgol Ansarinia during the last months and shown for the first time. In her practice, Ansarinia has addressed numerous topics such as control, memories associated with inhabited places, the urban development of Tehran with its demolition and rapid reconstruction process, patterns and motifs, recalling Persian mirror mosaics and carpets, which she then translates into artworks employing several media such as video, sculpture, drawing, and collage.

In this exhibition, the artist explores the relationship between what is visible on the surface of the city and the consequences that affect its identity. Investigating on the urban planning of her city of Birth, Tehran, she makes the viewer see how the city shines for its with symbolic significance. In the late 1960s, Victor Gruen Associates carried out a precise urbanization plan for Iran’s capital on the model of North American cities such as Los Angeles. A large number of private swimming pools were built in numerous buildings in Tehran, and then left empty as the result of the Iranian Revolution from 1979 onwards. Today they remain as still, empty presences on many properties.