Re-Creating the Citadel and the Photographs of Kaveh Golestan

Recreating the Citadel of Shahr-e No is a political archaeology of a lesser-studied crime committed during the early period of the nascent Islamic state in Iran in 1979. The book's point of departure and artistic core consists of sixty-one seminal photographs produced between 1975-77 by photographer Kaveh Golestan (1950-2003) who documented Tehran's red-light district a few years before it was violently set ablaze and erased from the urban landscape and social memory. 

The book recovers the site and the social and spatial experiences associated with the area - its relation to human life, the polis, social aesthetics, politics and dynamics, and the relationship between marginal and metropolitan citizenry. The project re-exposes it into social memory and the public domain and utilises the site to unmask an early and lesser-studied crime exposing it as an epicentral trigger point for the establishment and perpetuation of a state-enforced project of violence against the citizen and history itself.

The first exhibition of the recovered material curated by Vali Mahlouji was showcased at the Foam Museum of Photography, Amsterdam (2014), and thereafter toured the Musée d'art Moderne, Paris and MAXXI Museum, Rome (2014-2015). Consequently, the materials toured Photo London Fair (2015), Tate Modern, London (2017-18), Rohtas Gallery2, Lahore (2020), De le Warr Pavilion (2019), and Arnolfini (2019-2020). Tate Modern acquired the project in 2016.