The affected fountains are in culturally important places, including one in Daneshjoo Park, near the City Theatre, which has been subject to government censorship, and another in front of the Iranian Artists Forum, an interdisciplinary art space founded during the reform-oriented presidency of Mohammad Khatami.
According to VOA, citing the BBC’s Persian service, the fountains have since been drained. But for a moment, the transitory work served as a visceral reminder of the sacrifices made in the name of women’s rights.
Iran’s weekly protests began in mid-September after Mahsa Amini, 22, was arrested by “morality police” on suspicion of wearing a hijab by mistake and died in custody. The death has sparked numerous protests. The students have removed their head coverings and raised their middle fingers. Women have burned their hijabs and cut their hair. People poured into the streets chanting, “Women, life, freedom” and “Death to the dictator”, a reference to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Pamela Karimi — an art historian at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who recently published a book on contemporary Iranian art called “Alternative Iran” — said artists are at the heart of this protest movement. “Unfortunately, in the last 40 years, they have not been able to create political groups that can resist the government,” she said, pointing to Iran’s failed progress. movement. “Because of this, art has become a tool in the hands of people to communicate their dissatisfaction with the system.”
But the art that has emerged during the protests — illustrations of women cutting their hair, for example — stands out for its directness, Karimi said.
In a country where the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance must approve all art, Karimi says artists usually skirt the rules by seeking alternative spaces to make art – dilapidated factories, empty warehouses – and being ashamed of their messages.
“Iranian art is very complicated. You can’t describe it in a simple black and white way,” Karimi said. “Sometimes when you talk to Iranian artists, they don’t even talk to you directly about their political position. You have to read between the lines.”
Dyeing the water blood red might seem a bit on the nose by comparison, but that’s the point. “Now what we’re seeing online these days is a whole bunch of images that are very bold, very revolutionary in character and not shy about what they want to say. So this type of art is unique to this movement,” Karimi said.
Coloring fountains is not a new idea. Animal rights protesters have poured fake blood into fountains in London’s Trafalgar Square to draw attention to factory farming. And in 2017, a man turned the Trevi Fountain red to protest corruption in Rome.
In Iran, however, such practices have special significance as a way of honoring the dead. Karimi, who spent part of her childhood in Tehran, remembers visiting the city of Mashhad after the Iranian Revolution and seeing fountains painted red commemorating the martyrs. Tehran’s Behesth-e Zahra Cemetery once had a pool with a fountain flowing red – known as the Pool of Blood – to commemorate those who died in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
With this latest iteration, Karimi says the artist’s choice to stay out of the spotlight adds to the work and reflects the strength of the protest movement in Iran. “The beauty is that the artist himself or herself is anonymous. “Art is not just something you use to promote your profile,” she said. Instead, she reaches for something more selfless: “Anonymity shows that art is now pure activism. “
