A NOTE ON RELEVANCE AND CONTEXT

I am writing this during the last gasps of winter in Tbilisi. It has been two years; it is March and, at last, I have the opportunity to see Mom far from home, our home/Tehran, my home/Las Vegas. But I have to seek solitude from her to write this piece about Iran. Some two to three days away from our rare fourteen days together. And the piece will be published in the U.S. In Las Vegas, but not Tehran. Are these precious few moments away from her worth it? It is only a coincidence that my situation matches the twisted subject matter of my writing. I find myself in the Republic of Georgia writing about Iran, the motherland I can’t visit; publishing in the U.S., the land that Mom can’t come to. The slogans too, I write/you can’t read, pertain to happenings in Tehran, but have found themselves around the metropolis of Las Vegas.

Dislocation is the common denominator between me and the slogans in Las Vegas, their presence is reliant on my own dislocation. They don’t belong to Vegas yet are rightfully located there. I am to write this piece about that, and I am to write about the how and the why of the odd behavior of writing these slogans in an environment they don’t seem to belong.

A revolution has started in Iran. For twenty-five weeks, men and women, young and old, have reclaimed the streets that only forty-four years ago belonged to them. For the first five weeks I, along with millions of other forlorn Iranians, sat down and watched the uninterrupted protests. “Woman-life-freedom," which we heard in slogans, rekindled a long-lost reverence for our identity as Iranians. The experience was a reclamation of the entire notion of homecoming, a restored sense of belonging to a place. I began copying these slogans in the streets of the city where I live, spraying the words that adorn the walls of Tehran, and now also the cinderblock walls of Las Vegas. Those slogans are here for the exact same reason that they were chosen to be on the walls in

Tehran; out of the desire to resist the passivity that one’s environment has forced upon one. In Tehran, what is forbidden to be spoken manifests as written slogans; in Las Vegas, what is overlooked has found itself on the walls. Though the motives may differ, both sets of slogans share a common purpose: to challenge and combat passive forces. The presence of the slogans on the walls of a city serves as a poignant reminder of a message that seeks to be heard, but has been silenced by an outside force.

In Iranian society, the force is that of apparent oppression. In contrast, for Americans, the dominant force takes the form of an all-encompassing grandnarrative lens that overlooks anything that lies beyond the borders of their land. Why concern yourself with events beyond your nation's borders, you may ask? I say for human rights that is not solely a local matter, for art and culture that globalization has torn apart, for the immigrants that have made it here but don’t know why, for the global police that makes deals with criminals, for the foreign interventions that change the destiny of nations, for the oil that ISIS sold/Iraq bought, for the very reason that for a decade I have lived in this land with you and I’m still writing about Iran. But perhaps the justification you hear is for the lost troops, the stock market crash, the gas prices, the job market, for the minimum wage, for California’s sunny sky, the Kardashians, and the cheesy art you just bought. "Woman-Life-Freedom," I write, reflects problems that have accumulated over decades and are brought to light at the site of their source.

The repetitive resurgence of anti-government protests—Kooye Daneshgah in ‘99, the Green Wave ‘09, and Aban 1398 in 2019—had instilled a sense of stagnation, raising the conviction that the prospect of change remains unachievable. The regime, too, has fueled this conviction in its efforts to eliminate any alternative. In spite of this, the alternative has materialized with the unyielding persistence of the recent protests. This time is different. The protests haven’t stopped, distinguishing this movement as a revolution. For the first time the regime is rendered a lifeless corpse in the collective consciousness of our people. While it decays, everyday life has become a stage for competing acts of bravery, each person striving to outdo the others in their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. Passivity is relegated to the audience members, unable to participate in the show unfolding in our homeland, a familiar feeling for me/millions of Iranians/most immigrants. The making of slogans in Las Vegas, in my native language, is an action that I have chosen over reaction. The consequence is unclear; that is whether this action is only an acknowledgement of this oppressive passivity or an active force.

Displacement serves as an epistemological investigation into the nature of relevance, as scrutinizing the status of a displaced object prompts inquiry into the object's relevance to its present environment and the environment from which it originates. These questions of relevance are not limited to objects alone. Being the displaced individual not only is to relate to these questions but also is to experience this phenomenon from within, internalizing the throbbing change of context on an everyday basis. Every individual in the course of their displacement, regardless of whether or not they adapt to their new environment, asks this reoccurring question, “What am I doing here?” Understanding this question is the key to comprehending why the slogans are relevant in Las Vegas. The juxtaposing presence of the slogans in their environment raises the exact same question, “What are these slogans doing here?” The slogans are present in Las Vegas because the displaced individual is present there. The relevance of the slogans is conditional on someone else’s displacement. That is, the displacement of the creator provides the relevant context for the slogans. That is, my authorship and my presence in Las Vegas provides the relevant context for the slogans. That is, these slogans are as relevant as I am in Las Vegas. That is, my displacement at seventeen is the reason that these slogans have found themselves here, and asking why they are here is a question of why I am here. Questioning the relevance of the displaced is a question that I intend to ask of the passersby in this project.

The sudden appearance of handwriting in a foreign language on the walls of Las Vegas instills a sense of urgency in the passersby. Dispersing these writings throughout town is intended to create the need for immediate attention. The spectacle of the slogans confronts people with a thread of information, a thought process, a chain of historical events that led to the writing of the slogans on those walls. The slogans disrupt the viewers and demand a response, placing the viewers in a position to decide what response is warranted. Their choice—whether to allow it to remain, seek methods of removal, or investigate its purpose—is a statement in itself which determines a clear stance towards this historical point in time. Likewise, an attitude of complacency and/or the lack of awareness in their response is also a stance. Is the writing of these slogans a work of art? It certainly can be treated as one. Its elements can be investigated in an art dialogue. But the pure motivation behind the making of these writings is activism—the struggle to counteract the passive nature of being an immigrant and caring about the motherland. Regardless of whether the act proves to be effective or not, one continues the same method of rebellion. At this point the activity could be viewed as a habit of some kind since it resembles the action I would likewise perform in the motherland. An act of rebellion. An Iranian habit.

Nima Abkenar

Nima Abkenar is a Las Vegas-based conceptual artist from Iran. In his work he explores the subtleties of social phenomenon and political events. His dislocation from his native home at 17 has shaped his views in art and philosophy. Nima’s interest in context has bounded his art practice with alternative non-art spaces such as commercial buildings and abandoned warehouses. For the past five years he has collaborated with art entities such as Black Mountain Institute, D-Well Las Vegas, and the City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs to create installations and develop public art projects both nationally and in Iran.