Ardeshir Mohassess, Newsha Tavakolian & Sina Shiri | Basel Social Club 2026: Basel, Switzerland

Dastan is pleased to announce its participation in the 2026 edition of Basel Social Club, taking place from 14-20 June in Basel. This is Dastan's fourth participation at Basel Social Club. This year’s edition unfolds under the thematic framework of Office, examining the spaces, rituals, and structures through which labor, bureaucracy, authority, and social relations are performed. In response, Dastan presents works by Ardeshir Mohassess (1938–2008), Newsha Tavakolian (b. 1981, Iran), and Sina Shiri (b. 1991, Rasht, Iran), bringing together three distinct artistic approaches to the environments of work and administration in contemporary Iran.

Although separated by generation and medium, the artists share an interest in spaces where power is rehearsed through routine gestures and institutional frameworks. From the bureaucratic interiors of government ministries and newspaper offices to the structures of journalism and hospitality, the presentation considers how offices function not merely as workplaces but as stages upon which broader social hierarchies, aspirations, and contradictions become visible.

Ardeshir Mohassess is represented by two works from his celebrated Current Events series, produced in 1971–72. The series emerged from a body of observations and drawings developed throughout the 1960s and was later gathered and published in Daftarhā-ye Zamāna. Often described as a cartoonist yet operating closer to an artist-reporter, Mohassess observed the mechanisms of authority as they unfolded in ministries, courts, editorial rooms, and administrative offices. His drawings populated these environments with grotesque officials, anxious clerks, obedient functionaries, and tyrannical figures whose exaggerated forms expose the absurdity and violence embedded within bureaucratic systems. Drawing from Persian literary traditions, Qajar lithography, coffeehouse painting, and contemporary media imagery, Mohassess developed a visual language in which satire became a coded instrument of critique. Within the context of Office, his works reveal the workplace as a theater of governance, where power is continuously enacted through paperwork, protocol, and performance.

Two early photographs by Newsha Tavakolian are included in the presentation. Produced during the formative years of her career as a photojournalist, these works emerged from her experience working within the structure of Iranian newspapers and news agencies. Entering the profession at the age of sixteen, Tavakolian became part of a generation of image-makers documenting a rapidly changing society through the institutional framework of the press. These photographs capture not only events and subjects but also the conditions of journalistic production itself, where editorial decisions, deadlines, and the demands of reportage shape the act of seeing. Viewed through the lens of Office, the works position the newsroom as a site where information, representation, and public memory are negotiated. They reveal the often unseen labor behind image-making and foreshadow Tavakolian’s later investigations into the social and political complexities of contemporary life.
Sina Shiri presents five photographs from Touching the Green Velvet, a series that turns its attention toward hotel interiors. Working against the spontaneity traditionally associated with street photography, Shiri introduces studio lighting and carefully staged interventions into everyday environments. The resulting images linger on polished surfaces, heavy curtains, patterned carpets, and meticulously maintained rooms whose appearance of seamless comfort depends upon invisible labor. While hotels are conventionally associated with leisure and hospitality, Shiri approaches them as workplaces structured by discipline and service. The workers who appear within these photographs continuously adjust, clean, arrange, and align, performing gestures that sustain an idealized image of luxury while remaining excluded from its promises. In these spaces, hospitality becomes a parallel form of office culture, where aspiration, class distinction, and professional conduct are rehearsed through daily routines. Shiri’s photographs quietly reveal the tensions that exist beneath the polished veneer of service economies.

Together, the works of Mohassess, Tavakolian, and Shiri approach the office not as a singular architectural typology but as a broader social condition. Whether through satire, documentary photography, or staged observation, each artist examines environments where authority, labor, and representation intersect. Their works illuminate the systems that organize everyday life while revealing the individuals who inhabit, sustain, and occasionally resist them.

Ardeshir Mohassess (Rasht, 1938–2008) was one of the most influential and internationally recognized Iranian artists of the twentieth century. Although trained in Political Science and Law at the University of Tehran, he became renowned for his incisive drawings and satirical observations of power, authority, and social behavior. Drawing from Persian literary traditions, Qajar lithography, media imagery, and coffeehouse painting, Mohassess developed a singular visual language that bridged historical and contemporary forms of representation. His work has had a profound influence on generations of Iranian artists, cartoonists, and illustrators.

Newsha Tavakolian (b. 1981, Tehran, Iran) is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose career began in Iranian newspapers at the age of sixteen. She gained recognition for documenting major social and political events, including the 1999 student uprising, before joining the New York-based agency Polaris Images. Over the past two decades, Tavakolian has expanded her practice beyond photojournalism into contemporary art, producing photographs, video installations, and curatorial projects that examine identity, memory, and social transformation. She was nominated to Magnum Photos in 2015 and became an associate member in 2017.

Sina Shiri (b. 1991, Rasht, Iran) is a photographer based in Tehran. Beginning photography at the age of sixteen, he has worked with numerous press agencies and publications. Shiri's practice challenges the conventions of street photography by incorporating staged situations and artificial lighting into public and semi-public environments. His photographs often focus on overlooked aspects of urban life, revealing the complex relationship between individuals, labor, architecture, and social space.