Category: Arts
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Mohammad Reza Shajarian (1940 – 2020)
Iranians Grieve Death Of Legendary Singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian
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The First kiss in The Movie
The Kiss arrived in 1896, when movies were still a captivating new concept. Auguste and Louis Lumiere had just begun showing off their cinematograph—a hand-crank camera that included a projector—in demonstrations around Paris, three years after Thomas Edison had invited spectators to peer into the peephole of his kinetoscope and watch the flickering film inside. Continue…
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Cyber Curfew in Iran
Update: #Iran has now been offline for 52 hours following a government-imposed internet shutdown targeting widespread public protests. National connectivity remains at just 5% of normal levels, leaving Iranians cut off from the world #Internet4Iran⏱ 📰https://t.co/1Al0DT8an1 pic.twitter.com/F5Y9nBdnOJ — NetBlocks (@netblocks) November 18, 2019 @nytimes @CNN @cnnbrk @AP #IranianProtests #Internet4Iran #Iran
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Banksy painting self-destructs after being sold at auction
Banksy has now become a household name, and that his work achieves strong prices at major auctions is no longer a curiosity or exception. When Sotheby’s announced that a final lot of their Contemporary Art Evening Auction on the Friday night of 2018 Frieze week in London would be a previously unseen version of Banksy’s…
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The Most Feared Song In Jazz, Explained
Making sense of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.”
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The Islamic Science Fiction Then and Now
Centuries before invisible men, time travel, flying machines and journeys to other planets and before the Western Imagination, there was the Abbasid caliphs that established the city of Baghdad and with that came The Islamic Golden age. Almost 1300 years ago, The scientific endeavours of Islamic empire was stuffed with the scientific curiosities that continue to flourish for…
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Being Hassan for Morocco
A photographer, designer, and filmmaker, Hassan Hajjaj is one of Morocco’s preeminent international artists, sometimes called his native country’s answer to Andy Warhol. Entirely self-taught and influenced by a mix of London’s hip-hop and reggae scenes and his North African heritage, Hajjaj has a diverse practice that includes portraiture, installation, performance, fashion, and furniture design.…
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Dance About I Hate Dancing
Directer, choreographer , dancer and filmmaker Jo Roy made a playful video based on a poem by British actor and comedian Stephen Fry…
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Illusionist Painter
Rob Gonsalves is a 55-year-old Canadian of Portuguese descent who paints scenes that fill in the space somewhere in between everyday activities and hallucinations. His images contain dual representations of reality—with his particular artistry forming at the intersection between fantasy and nonfiction. At just 12 years old, Gonsalves began acquiring perspective drawing skills and giving…
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Iranian Homosexuals in an Album
Born to Iranian parents but growing up with Swiss upbringing gave Laurence Rasti critical mind that has a flavors of both culture. In her project “There Are No Homosexuals in Iran “, we can see the alternative perspective that she brought to a social issue in Iran. “In Denizli, a small town in Turkey, hundreds of Iranian gay refugees have put…
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A guy in our office is going through a divorce
He is distracted and depressed and hardly focused. He is constantly complaining, skipping on office work and missing deadlines. And to top it all off, he is forgetful and takes forever to do a simple task. Last week after seeing all the backed up work and more that needed to get done, I barged in…
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If you are the Prince, I would be your persian Princess
I was running late to work as usual, on the morning April 21st. Jumped in the car and started the engine. The radio got on and frustration suddenly rushed into my mind. “Stupid radio, Just be quiet” My hand was right on the switch to turn it off and suddenly I heard:”Prince was found dead in his…
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I’m not your girlfriend honey, just be fast
The door bell rang and the boy ran to the door monitor and picked up the phone with no hesitation. Right before, he hit the table beside the wall and the vase fell down on the floor. He bent down, grabbed the vase and put the artificial flowers back inside, while answering the phone.…
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A brief history of Iranian cinema
To best understand the roots of Iranian cinema, one must perhaps travel back to the early 20th century, when the Qajar monarch Mozaffareddin Shah was shown cinematographic footage during a visit to France. The cinematograph, invented in 1892, was the successor to the kinetoscope that granted viewers the ability to watch quality, illuminated images on…
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I am still *mesmerized*
It was midday, almost noon. I was at the office and dad called, wondering about my plans for lunch. And I talked about not being able to make it home in time. Dad suggested I’d go to his place and join him for lunch. “I got some calf liver”, he said, “and I’ll barbecue some…
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First Illustrated Persian Translation of Allan Poe’s The Raven
Allan Poe’s “The Raven” had been translated to Persian in the past, but this edition is a distinguished artifice because of its approach to both publication and translation. First of all, this is the first illustrated Persian translation of Allan Poe’s masterpiece. Secondly, it provides an introduction to the thought process and rationale behind the translation as well as…
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Iranian Jewellery Designers in Instagram
It seems that the jewellery design industry is booming in Iran. In the last 10 years there has been a new revival for this old forgotten national guild. It is only logical that the eager entrepreneurs such as Neda Majidi act upon this new niche market. She has gathered more than 700 Iranian designers to…
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Toronto Film Festival and All the Crying Men
Crying male protagonists appeared in the first two films that I saw in this year’s TIFF. It came to my mind that maybe I should look for a trend, the unexpected snivelling men trend, men who are bawling tears or men who have no difficulty blubbering or even very comfortably bewailing in full agony. Therefore as a man who secretly finds a reason to cry…
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Iranian Fusion Band "Circle" CD Release – Toronto
This is the band that we introduced in our Persian magazine and we claimed that they got very close to adapting our beloved poet Sepehri’s poems into their songs. A challenge that most Iranian musicians wont even dare. 180 Shaw Street, Toronto 647 – 773 2158
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The Loss of High Culture
This loss of high culture is not an American phenomenon alone. English intellectual and artistic life has fallen off greatly since the generation of Evelyn Waugh, Isaiah Berlin, and Hugh Trevor-Roper. England now appears to be Mick Jagger’s country. The English novel, as written by Martin Amis, Ian -McEwan, and Salman Rushdie, attracts more publicity…
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A Film About Iranian Divorced Woman
Ida panahandeh’s first feature film ‘Nahid’ has been selected in Cannes Festival 2015 official selection. Nahid is a divorced woman who lives in a northern city of Iran. She has to choose between his son and his love but she does not want to face the dilemma which others have made to her. Nahid tries…
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The Boys of Kabul Dreams
Kabul Dreams is a young ensemble blooming on the same grounds. Being the first modern punk rock band in Afghanistan, the group – formed in 2008 by lead guitarist and singer Sulyman Qardash, along with Mujtaba Habibi (their former drummer), and bassist Siddique Ahmed – introduced its own idiosyncrasy of criticism and discontent following the…
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Soz and Nauha and Singing for God
In this song Kabir evokes the image of our body, our self, being like the five-stringed musical instrument – the tambura. Made of the four elements and containing the fifth element – shoonyata or emptiness – we hold within our self the capacity to resound to a higher sound. But only if we learn to…
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Bizarre Ancient Persia in Snoop Dogg's Video
Iranian singer Amitis Moghaddam – stage name Amitis – released a bizarre ancient Persian-themed music video on Monday featuring well-known American rapper Snoop Dogg. The song is in English, although Amitis’ past tracks were mainly recorded in Farsi. On Facebook, Amitis has around 64,000 followers compared to Snoop Dogg’s 35 million, leaving us scratching our…
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Ajam Feels Like a Stranger
A few years ago, when I was searching on the Internet for Iranian mahali (folk) music, I came across the music of a London-based group called ‘Ajam’. Their music not only impressed me, but intrigued me as well. After listening to several of their singles, I made it a point to follow up with the…
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Half And Half Hair Colors
That’s right, the days of agonizing over whether or not you should dress your tresses up in a single shade of pink or purple may now be a thing of the past, since split-dyed hair lets you rock both beloved colors in one awesome hairstyle. These half and half hairdos look insanely awesome and give…
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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Just imagine mixing Dracula wandering in London with the Middle Eastern vampire girl thatcovered with the Vail, hunting down the bad men. Then continue imagining a high contrast sort of the expressionist style of cinema with lots of weird but cool Iranian characters living in a nightmarish city surrounded with the oil wells… That is the…
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Tehran Based Musician Arash Akbari
As a young producer from Tehran, Arash Akbari has made his name releasing on Oído Records and on compilations with fellow experimental producers making similar sounds from Iran. Playing mostly guitar and laptop, exploring Ambient, IDM, Drone, Experimental music. While plenty has been written about his work, with ‘lush’ and ‘warm’ in almost every review,…
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The Surfer Girls Of Iran
The 28-year-old Irish surfer has spent several weeks in the past three years riding the waves in a remote region of what is – to Western minds – a little-understood state. In doing so, she has helped to break down cultural boundaries, and introduced Iranian women to a sport that was always waiting on their…
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Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
Born in the East End and the son of a taxi driver, Alexander McQueen was the quintessential bad boy made good. He had brains and brawn, having survived over ten years as a solo designer and being brought into the Gucci Group stable, which bought a 51 per cent stake in his company 2002. In…
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Leonard Nimoy’s Photography of Full Body Women
These photos of full-figured women were taken by the late Leonard Nimoy in 2007 to challenge entrenched concepts of beauty. They echo the work of artists from Botticelli to Matisse and Helmut Newton. The models are from a burlesque group in San Francisco, the Fat Bottom Revue. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/mar/03/the-full-body-project-by-leonard-nimoy-in-pictures All photographs by /courtesy of R Michelson Galleries…
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American Sniper and Its Ideological Contradictions
From an ideological standpoint, it is too easy to damn Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, but from a cinematic perspective, the film relies on skilfully staged action scenes and a narrative rhythm that never loses its momentum. While watching the film, I tried to ignore its ideological agenda by being absorbed in pure drama and the…
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“Snow” A Good Film by Mehdi Rahmani
“Snow,” the new film by Mehdi Rhamani, is a gloomy film about a middle class family that, because of financial difficulties, is on the verge of disintegration. Although the subject is somehow repetitive, the film’s atmosphere is quite absorbing. The entire film happens in a rather large house that the family has to give up…
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Milan Kundera’s New Novel in 13 Years
Milan Kundera’s New novel The Feast of Insignificance is a “wryly comic yet deeply serious glance at the ultimate insignificance of life and politics, told through the daily lives of four friends in modern-day Paris”. Said chief executive Stephen Page: “It feels incredibly relevant to the world we live in now. It’s very funny, and also…
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Cartoon for Hottest Year Ever; 2014
All of these scientific centres and global climate watchers claim that 2014 was the warmest year ever Global Analysis – Annual 2014 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/ 2014 on track to be hottest year on record, says US science agency http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/20/2014-on-track-to-be-hottest-year-on-record-says-us-science-agency climate central.org http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2014-on-track-to-be-warmest-year-on-record-18041 NOAA http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014-warmest-year-in-modern-record/#.VL_igUfF9Z8 2014 warmest year in Europe since 1500s http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e92579ae-8580-11e4-ab4e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3PThtypDi
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Oscar-nominated Leviathan
Leviathan, the new film by Andrey Zvyagintsev, is about political corruption in northern Russia. But unlike many other political films, it is not a thriller. Instead, it is a film that takes a philosophical, almost contemplative attitude, toward social decay and political corruption. The film tells the story of a working class couple whose house,…
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Master Böyükağa
In this video the two generations of Iranian classical music Böyükağa and young singer Omeed Mazhari collaborate and create a transcendental musical moment. Böyükağa, the self learned master who couldn’t stand the pattern of ordinary life grew dissatisfied and lonely much like the Japanese Haiku poet of 17 century Basho. He is not with us…
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Iranian Band of Three Vagabonds "Velshodegan"
Velshodegan plays Iranian traditional music, a band of the three Musketeers that act like Don Quixote. They play the traditional musical scales but instead of the poetry associated with the Iranian classic music, their songs have no sadness ,no spiritual quests and no heartbroken lovers. They are singing sarcastic street slang that defies the norms. https://www.facebook.com/Velshodegan?pnref=story Mehran Fallahi singer, songwriter and Tar player, Behzad Hassanzadeh…
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Street Ballet
Little Shao is what Paris based photographer, Thinh Souvannarath, likes to be called. He is a Ballet and Hip-Hop photographer, art director, and filmmaker. http://www.culturainquieta.com/en/fotografia/item/3290-ballet-on-the-street.html
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Iranian Doors
The amount of beauty and art that resides in the Middle East is extraordinary. From natural beauties to Islamic Art, the Middle East is the kind of place that fascinates you with every little detail. Wherever you go in the Middle East, you will come across beautiful details in the most random of objects. Doors…
