Morehshin Allahyari - IRUS Art Project

IRUS Art Project (2008-2010)

IRUS art is an intercultural collaborative art project between the artists in Iran and the U.S. I am the co-founder, organizer, and one of the artists of this project. Our team was consist of eleven artists in Tehran and nine artists in Denver. For one year, we established collaborative projects between our groups. By mailing incomplete artworks from Tehran to Denver and from Denver to Tehran through Istanbul or friends traveling between the two countries (no object can be mailed directly between Iran and U.S.), completing them in our respective cities and sending them back, we have built a collection of completed pieces.Using the theme of “Dialogue,” it was our goal to the perspectives of each group in a respectful, trusting and encouraging manner. In this process, we were not only developing art, but also participating in a functional dialogue with each other as artists and individuals (and not necessarily “nations”). A combination of painting, video art, drawings, photographs, software, street art, and design was featured in Denver at the Andenken gallery in the spring of 2009. A selected version of this show was featured at the Co-Prosperity Sphere gallery in Chicago, January 2010.