Mohammad Tabesh

The Map is an 8' x 8' chalk drawing on a concrete floor, depicting the downtown Tehran map and its surroundings. During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, Tehran was subjected to numerous air raids and missile attacks. As children growing up at war, my brother and I played a game in which we marked black circles on a map for every explosion during Tehran Missile Attacks. However, we stopped playing the game when we realized that our downtown apartment was at the center of these attacks. In this work, I recreated this memory by drawing it in chalk on the floor, making the viewer the decision-maker in sparing or destroying the city. By choosing the floor as the canvas, the viewer is placed in the middle and can travel back and forth between the city's people and the military men looking over the city. The aim is to create an immersive experience for the viewer rather than a simple narrative.