Mina Mohseni and Amirnasr Kamgooyan, in collaboration with Dastan:Outside and Ashkan Zahraei, present “Pālkāneh: Ten-by-One”, a site-specific project set up in Mina Mohseni and Amirnasr Kamgooyan’s balcony, at 12 Khedri Street, 3rd Floor, Sanaei Street, Tehran. Throughout this project, a number of visual artists, designers, architects and artists from other fields will work to create works and installations that are to be viewed and experienced from afar, that is the street across.
The English word “balcony” is derived from the Italian “balcone”, which itself can be traced back to the Persian word “pālkāneh” which according to Dehkhoda Dictionary is “a small latticed door through which one can inconspicuously look outside”. Balconies are usually lesser-used spaces in Tehran due to the more conservative social norms of the post-1979-revolution Iran.
Aside from architects moving away from designing larger balconies, residents have mostly left these spaces unused as an extension of the house. The apartment in Khedri Street, designed and constructed in the 1970s features a wide (10m), although narrow (1m), balcony facing the street. “Pālkāneh: Ten-by-One” seeks to use the third-floor balcony as an opportunity to present experimental projects that can often escape being labeled as art, both by their makers and their viewers.
“Pālkāneh: Ten-by-One” was conceived by artists Mina Mohseni and Amirnasr Kamgooyan in June 2019 and is hosted at their apartment’s balcony. “Pālkāneh: Ten-by-One” is supported by Dastan:Outside.