How to familiarize oneself with a place one can neither see, hear, nor smell? Amir Ashgarnejad and Anahita Alebouyeh asks in their exhibition Nægh-sje. The title is a play on the Persian words nægsje (map) and nægh-sje (depiction, roleplaying), indicating the motivation of the exhibition: to navigate a path toward an understanding of Iran – a country that they know, yet cannot remember. Through painting, weaving, drawing, film, and sculpture, the artists seek to get closer to the land that remains simultaneously distant and close.

The journey starts in the artists own point of departure – the stories that shaped their idea of Iran, to then question those very narratives. Why were they told these stories? And how have these tales shaped the artists’ understanding of themselves and their country of origin? By looking both to the past and into the future, “Nægh-sje” explores what Iran represents for the artists, what it was to their parents, and what it may be for their descendants.