Neda Razavipour and Rambod Vala, Hushhh! 2011. 1:05

Tehran is among the most polluted cities in the world, where it hurts to breath the air sometimes. Prolonged exposure to pollution causes asthma, asphyxiation, chronic fatigue, and other respiratory illnesses widespread among Tehranis, children in particular. Pollution is political. The air quality has worsened in the recent years, as international sanctions caused shortage of imports of refined gasoline, and necessitated production of emergency fuel containing higher levels of pollutants. Artist Negar Farajiani has curated a series of presentations entitled Tehran Monoxide, seeking to raise awareness to the causes and effects of pollution through artworks, including an ongoing street art project by Neda Razavipour Hushhh! represented in a video collage by Rambod Vala. Stickers distributed around the city proclaim, “Hushhh! Die Slowly” and “Deep Breath.” Razavipour has conceived and realized a number of performative actions engaging with the public in Tehran, including Census, 2003 (with Shahab Fotouhi); Dream Set, 2004; and Self Service, 2009. Another video by Razavipour included in the program, Find the Lost One (2009), invites the viewer to play a visual game—find “the lost one”—a figure digitally erased from one of the two side-by-side video frames of a crowd. Even though some figures have been disappeared from the crowd—or society—it keeps moving, oblivious to the loss of an individual.