ART-O-POURT PROJECT

“Art-o-Pourt” is the title for a group project/platform with a goal of presenting projects raised up from a collective mind, directed towards today's society concerns. The project started in April 2011 and has been on hold since late 2013. This project is not aiming to necessarily have a specific art product or outcome. The main goal is to pursue the process, to document the discussions, and to hold talks for the projects to come to conclusion and for the projects to interact with each other in order to follow a certain path. We mostly held sessions and talked to discuss or design new ways to interact and deal with different forms of relations between art and society. We also discussed Tehran art scene problems and complexities, and how we can emphasize on these issues using art and irony.

The term “Art-o-Pourt” is an initiatory mixed title made out of two phrases, One is “Art” and the other one is “Hart-o-Pourt”. Hart-o-pourt in the Persian language is used as a street slang in order to express the act of bossing around, talking bullshit and bluffing while they cannot or are not able to do what they claim to do, and just “Hart-o-Pourt” about it! We removed the first H from the word and turned it into Art-o-Pourt, which clearly is aiming to be sarcastic, bold, and cultural at the same time.

My role in this project is the initiator. The project meetings were mostly taken place in Parkingallery independent art space in Tehran.