No City is in the City

Installation View, Human Resources, Los Angeles
2022

"No city is in the city" is part of an ongoing project that observes, embodies, and speculates about the cultural and social implications of an anonymous gravestone located in Qom, Iran. The only identifying information marking the gravestone is "Kaboutar, the child of Ali" (کبوتر فرزند علی). In Farsi, the name "Kaboutar" translates to pigeon. The pigeon's visibility in the city and their "unruly" characteristic, along with the invisibility of the anonymous grave, all question the authority and hierarchy in urban order. "No city is in the city" combines forms inspired by the Iranian cemetery's architecture with newspaper archives reflecting on pigeons as city dwellers and constant companions of humankind.