Tehran is a city both forged and forgotten by modernity. The ever-present hum of traffic, the continuous movement of people, the breathing of heavy, combusted air. Not only the mobile vehicles, but solidified infrastructures, pavements, highway exits, footbridges and construction sites – as well as the human adaptations and appropriations of space around them – seem to find varied, intermixed, negotiated ways of co-existence. In the mixture, the Chaloos Road, an engineering triumph, a motorway carved through the mountains escaping out of Tehran to the Caspian Sea, turns into an umbilical extension of urban life. Extracted from the earth itself, bitumen is rolled everywhere as the surface for modernity, offered as crude cure for the city’s mobility.

Situated in the context of urban Tehran, Exhibition as Editing Exercise by Nader Koochaki, has been a special project created for the Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (MOP CAP) 2015 Winner’s Exhibition. Resulting from an ongoing process of photography, travels, collecting, writing and discussions, this publication gathers for display the direct editorial yield of the eponymous exhibition, shown in November 2016 in London. Through editing/installation sessions on the gallery floor, actual photo prints, laid out texts and objects, all following a preset custom grid pattern, have been scaled down and printed to create this experimental edition of 150 copies.

© 2016 Nader Koochaki ISBN 978-952-68416-1-8 24 pages + covers with B&W and color photographs Numbered edition of 150 copies
Published by: MOP Foundation, London, United Kingdom Selim Projects, Helsinki, Finland
Editor: Mika Savela Texts: Mika Savela, Mohamad Reza Haeri, Nader Koochaki Translations: Robert Curwen, Kimia Kamvari, Mahan Moalemi Photography (works): Nader Koochaki Photography (publication): Pat Graham