Notes on City and Architecture

A group of Iranian schoolgirls protest in the classroom while removing their compulsory hijab. Covering her face, one holds a sign which reads: Zan, Zendegi, Azadi [Woman, Life, Freedom]. Photograph: Morning Star, 2023. Woman, Life, Freedom: Revolting Space Invaders in Iran By Mahsa Alami Fariman and Ahmadreza Hakiminejad This article was penned in response to an invitation to write for a Special Issue entitled 'Revisiting Space Invaders'. The article was first published online in  European Journal of Cultural Studies  in August 2024.    Synopsis In marking 20 years since the first publication of Nirmal Puwar's seminal book ' Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place ', we've revisited the notions of invisibility, outsiderness, being ‘out of place’ and ‘space invaders’ within the political geographies of Iran. Furthering the concept, we also tend to pair together ‘space invaders’ with the acts of invading space as political acts of intervention....

  Cover image of the Special Issue, darkmattter, 2024. Illustration by Marjan Vafaeian, 2023. Woman, Life, Freedom: The Sounds of A Revolution Edited by Mahsa Alami Fariman and Ahmadreza Hakiminejad / published by  darkmatter Journal  (Issue 17, 2024). This Special Issue was inspired by, and reflected on the public engagement event  Woman, Life, Freedom: The Sounds of A Revolution  the editors had co-organised last year which took place at Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, UK on May 20, 2023. This free and non-profit public event was part of an Action Research carried out by the editors in collaboration with the Centre for Feminist Research of Goldsmiths University of London; Centre for the Study of Women and Gender; Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies; and Sustainable Cities Global Research Priorities of the University of Warwick.    Please see the full Issue here via  darkmatter website . 

Screenshot from the sound piece  Woman, Life, Freedom: The Sounds of A Revolution  (2023), produced by Mahsa Alami Fariman, Ahmadreza Hakiminejad, and Duncan Whitley. Digital Space and Feminist Politics in Iran: Archival Methodologies of Sound By Mahsa Alami Fariman & Ahmadreza Hakiminejad   This work was presented as part of  Gender in Crisis Workshop 2024  (organised by Gender Urban Research Collective), held at Utrecht University, Netherlands, 3-5 July 2024. Synopsis In the light of the recent women-led mobilisations in Iran which have mushroomed after the state killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, we, the authors, in collaboration with British filmmaker and sound artist Duncan Whitley , have co-produced a multi-media sound work, entitled ‘ Woman, Life, Freedom; The Sounds of A Revolution ’, tries to depict the Iranian women’s struggle against the tyrannical establishment of the Iranian regime since the 1...

  ‘Abadan — the Fruit of British Industry that Persia Covets.’ Illustrated London News, 8 September 1951. Cited in Damluji, 2013.  The Rise and Fall of An Oil City: A Sociological (Hi)story of Abadan By Ahmadreza Hakiminejad and Mahsa Alami Fariman    Synopsis In 1909, the London-based Anglo-Persian Oil Company was born and by 1912, the liquid began to flow in the pipeline from the oil fields of Masjed Soleyman to what was yet to become the world’s largest oil refinery on the desert island of Abadan; putting a deprived Iranian village on the map. In this paper, we tend to depict a contested sociological portrayal of the oil city of Abadan, through literature, poetry, film, oral history and archival methods. This piece aims to tell a social (hi)story of ‘the oil town’ from its colonial past to its post-revolutionary present.  ------------------------------- This work was presented as part the panel 'Histories of Oil Cities' in  Petrocultures 2024...

  Al-Zahra University, Tehran, Iran, 12 November 2022. A student re-enacting the torture scene of Khodanour Lajaei being tied to a flag post by the state agents. He was shot during the Zahedan massacre (aka. Bloody Friday) on 30 September 2022 and died in a hospital on October 2 .   City as Stage: Performative Body and the Authoritarian City Authors: Ahmadreza Hakiminejad and  Mahsa Alami Fariman  Synopsis In a cold day in December 2017, on the curbs of Enghelab Street in central Tehran, Iran, a defiant woman climbs a utility box, takes her hijab off, ties it to a stick and waves it to the crowd. Her eyes stared soulless towards her city, waving her white scarf in silence. The performer reclaimed the street to convert it into a theatrical stage with its astonished audience. This simple yet courageous bodily phenomenon tending to reclaim the city became a symbolic act of protest against the compulsory hijab. In light of the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom movement in ...

  SpaceX Event, LTB Showrooms, Coventry. July 1, 2022.  I was invited to speak at SPACEX event co-organised by the  Centre for Postdigital Cultures and  LTB Showrooms  in Coventry.  SPACEX (Spatial Practices in Art and ArChitecture for Empathetic EXchange) is a European Union-sponsored " transdisciplinary research action, comprising of 1 3 universities and academies and 16 cultural organisations, across 11 EU countries with 1 partner in Palestine, which tends to " respond to the troubling rise of populist nationalism and conflict in European societies by engaging new publics and forging a culture that embraces diversity, difference, and discursive exchange within cities, towns and urban sites." The event entitled ‘ Arts and the urban commons: new visions for the phoenix city ’, will address  "the issues arising from Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture. We will hear from artists, curators, researchers and local citizens, this will give an insight in...

  I co-organised an international conference titled: City, Public Space & Body , hosted by the  Goldsmiths' ICCE Department . The conference was virtual and took place on 14-15 December 2021. For further details, please see the conference website .  Conference Theme The growing of urban population and the rapid change of urban environments, accelerated even more in the current century, entails challenges to defining and practising public spaces in cities. The public space, its implications and accompanied expectations, its embodiment and consequent social impacts, have been the focus of ongoing theorisation and debates. Ideally, the dynamics of gathering in and passing through urban public spaces, indoor and outdoor –from streets, squares, parks, libraries, museums, to other cultural and leisure centres – could lead to a culture more open to differences. Yet, in our time, governmental power and the force of privatisation have been inflicted upon these spaces, squ...