
Soleil of Persian Square
- Publisher
- GwinZegal
- Year
- 2021
- ISBN
- 9791094060353
- Specifications
- 22 × 28 cm
220 pages
Soleil of Persian Square is a research into the visual identity of the Iranian diaspora lifestyle in Los Angeles. She attempts to give a face to this fictional city called Tehrangeles, which Hannah Darabi discovered through images associated with popular music in her teenage years. The aim here is to weave links between ordinary landscapes of Los Angeles and Orange County - as bearers of traces of this Iranian diaspora -, portraits of its inhabitants, and objects from popular culture, such as cassette covers, song lyrics, screenshots of music videos from the 1980s and 1990s, or even pages from directories devoted to the activities of this diaspora. Soleil of Persian Square does not only designate a journey from real space to that of the imagination, but also a way of life and a way of thinking embodied in popular culture. This culture, which positions itself today in opposition to the moral values of the current Iranian regime, and which secular intellectuals also criticize for its “low art” side, has nevertheless survived, notably through the pop music of Tehrangeles. This music that we love to “hate” has never lost its place in the hearts of this dispersed nation, and has never stopped moving our bodies, whether in a taxi in Tehran, among friends in Paris, or in a concert in Toronto. Thirty copies of this work were taken from this book, accompanied by a poster and a cassette of Post California co-produced by GwinZegal and Anywave. With publishing support from the National Center for Plastic Arts.