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Tehran Summit Tehran

 Tehran Summit did not begin as an event so much as a response—to absence, exhaustion, and the narrowing conditions of artistic life shaped by cultural isolation, political censorship, and uneven access to resources. Initiated in 2022 by Erfan Ghiasi and Ghazel, the Summit emerged from a shared frustration with the art scene in Iran that is increasingly dominated by market logic and performative visibility, where cultural production risked serving as a vehicle for capital. In such a landscape, the desire to convene—to think, speak, and work together—was not optional, but necessary.

Rather than aspiring toward spectacle or illumination, Tehran Summit operates from what Erfan describes as “The Cosmic Darkness”: a space of uncertainty, invisibility, and refusal. It is in this darkness that other forms of attention become possible. Thus, gathering is proposed not as a solution, but as a method—one shaped by risk and operating below the surface.

In this conversation, Erfan and Ghazel reflect on the origins of Tehran Summit and the conditions that have shaped its development: negotiating distance and diaspora, and grappling with what it means to remain socially engaged when visibility itself can be compromised.

Seen this way, Tehran Summit is less about producing visibility than about holding space: for thought to unfold, for relationships to form, and for gestures of resistance to sustain: against false optimism, against extractive cultural economies, and against the idea that meaningful artistic exchange must always take place in the light.



Erfan Ghiasi, Ghazel, Yindi Chen, Yutong Shi, December 20, 2025

Yutong    

Can you take us back to the beginning of Tehran Summit? How did the idea first take shape, and what led you to start working together?

Erfan    

The idea for the Summit started around 2018. At the time, I was studying at Louisiana State University and focused on intervention and socially engaged art, while most people around me were making ceramics or paintings. I felt out of place—like I didn’t belong. Then I attended the 9th edition of Creative Time Summit for the first time; suddenly, I was surrounded by people who were thinking about the world and what art could be in a very different way. I realized that I was just in the wrong place, among the wrong people. That experience planted the seed for what eventually became the Tehran Summit.

Ghazel    

Everything in Iran is exaggerated because of the political and social situation. The idea of doing a “summit” felt urgent because the Tehran art scene has become almost entirely about the market, which glosses over horrible things. Artists are pushed to make nice, pink things that can be sold to people who are trying to clean money.
       In the middle of such a scene—so false, so detached from both reality and society—the idea of the Tehran Summit felt right. Doing something socially engaged was not optional—it came out of necessity.

Erfan    

When I returned to Iran from the United States, people often asked why I was so active. My energy comes from two things: boredom and wrath. I used to work from hope; now it’s closer to hopelessness. There’s a quote by Jasmine Mans about “Stop looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and find God in the darkness.” My version would be: “Stop looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and find the demon in the darkness.”

Ghazel    

Demon—no.

Erfan    

In philosophy, the demon isn’t an antagonistic figure. It has been criminalized for eternity simply for asking why: why bow to a given order, why accept a single narrative of the cosmos. That act of questioning is what gets punished.
        I see the demon as a reminder that the world can be lived differently and that inherited narratives can be challenged. Embracing the demon in the darkness is about opening space for that possibility. This is the ethos of the Tehran Summit: a place of gathering, where night assemblies and shared darkness create space for speculation—for imagining the world otherwise.

Ghazel    

When the Summit happens in Iran, it’s nighttime here, while for much of the rest of the world, it is daytime. That contrast is important. We see the Summit as a kind of night gathering—usually at 8:30 pm Tehran time.

Erfan    

Yes, the absence of the sun matters. In many religions, including Islam, God is described as the light of lights.  In the Middle East, where Monotheism is the dominant belief, light—and especially the sun—is often associated with ultimate truth, authority, and divinity. 
        This also connects to an insurgency against the sun, which often stands for a single god, a single universe, a single truth. Yet the sun also narrows our perspective—it orders time, tells us when to see and act. 

Yutong    

In the manifesto, you mention the idea of a “solar empire” and the choice to gather at 8:30 pm Tehran time. When we scheduled this interview, you suggested that time, and I only understood why after reading the text. Could you talk about that decision?

Erfan    

Using Tehran time is very intentional. It’s not a standard reference point like EST or CET—it centers a non-Eurocentric location. Iran occupies a complicated political and cultural position, and I see it as a kind of bridge between the dominant narratives of “East” and “West.” Gathering at night also matters. We embrace darkness as a space for speculation and possibility, rather than daylight, which often stands for certainty, enlightenment, and divine authority.

Ghazel    

From the very beginning—even during what we called “Summit Zero”—it was important that everything happened in the Tehran time zone. It wasn’t just symbolic; it grounded the Summit in a specific place and perspective. 
        It’s also interesting because Tehran time is rarely used internationally. Many participants got confused at first—they didn’t know how to adjust. Only Iran has that half-hour offset, and it really highlighted how different this space is.

Yutong    

For people who are encountering the Summit for the first time: how does it work logistically? How is each edition structured? Can anyone attend?

Erfan    

Each Summit begins with a theme. For the last two editions and the upcoming one, I’ve been collaborating with Una Mathiesen Gjerde, whom I met during a residency in Romania. The Summit usually runs for seven days, with one session each evening. We provide the platform, and the speakers determine their own formats—lectures, performances, conversations, or something more experimental. What connects them is that most are misfits within their fields: artists, thinkers, and scholars working against dominant frameworks.
       The very first one was called Meta-Tool. The idea originates from Boris Groys’ text, which views art as more than a tool. Art is not meant to be merely functional. Rather, its function is to create interruptions—to disrupt habitual ways of thinking. That’s the core of it.
       We called the first summit the Zero Summit: I wanted to begin with zero because zero makes everything else possible. You cannot have a million, a thousand, or a billion without zero—

Ghazel    

—it is a number.

Erfan    

Yes, zero is the number you don’t count from. It is often overlooked, underrepresented, but absolutely essential. In many ways, it encapsulates the spirit of the summit: the insistence on thinking differently, starting from what is usually ignored or dismissed.

Ghazel    

I should add that the first one had zero budget. That was made very clear to everyone from the beginning. Everyone participated knowing they were doing it for free, and that shared understanding was part of what shaped the spirit of the project.
        Starting with zero budget was a way to prove that we were completely independent—not linked to any embassy or cultural fund abroad. One speaker panicked when she saw there was a website and an Instagram, because she didn’t want to be associated with Iran. I had to explain again: no, we are completely independent. We’re not linked to anyone but ourselves.

Erfan    

The first two Summits were zero-budget. I wanted to keep it that way. But at the same time, I don’t want this to always be the case. It’s good to be able to offer some kind of honorarium. 
        The Tehran Biennale continues to operate with zero budget, and I am committed to maintaining that condition. It functions as an accelerative experiment that demonstrates whether art can be produced within a fully dystopian environment, outside market-driven frameworks, and in direct relation to its socio-political conditions. This question feels especially urgent today, as funding cuts spread across the Globe, forcing a reconsideration of the role of art and artists. As I jokingly mentioned to Vasil, a Bulgarian curator I met in the Gwangju Curatorial program, I am already living in the future that many others are only beginning to confront.

Yutong    

Just to clarify, Tehran Biennale and Tehran Summit are two different projects, correct?

Erfan    

Let’s phrase it this way: They are two wings of the same demon. The Summit started in 2022, and then the Biennale started in 2023.

Yindi    

Have you since received any financial support for the Summit? 

Erfan    

With the help of Una, we’ve applied for a few grants and received a limited amount of funding from the Norway—Fritt Ord Foundation that supports international projects that explore freedom of expression, as well as one from the City of Oslo.

Yutong    

Since the Tehran Summit operates largely as an online, discursive platform—accessible globally—who do you see as its audience? And how has it been received within Iran?

Ghazel    

We decided to do it in English. First of all, having a translator or interpreter would cost money, and we had no budget. Second, translation would have disrupted the spontaneity—we needed it to happen in the moment, live and online. 
       Internet access was also a real issue. In Iran, it was very tricky. You always had to say inshallah that the connection would last for one hour. It was never guaranteed. We needed VPNs for Zoom, and there were many complications. So you don’t want to waste time. Of course, this meant that some people couldn’t understand it or chose not to join because it was in English. That said, I was just discussing with Erfan, there are now many tools that allow for instant translation.

Erfan    

English isn’t our first language, but if you want to create international connections and reach a broader audience, you have to meet people halfway. Yes, English is a colonial language, but right now it’s also the main international language we have. Hopefully, there will be better alternatives in the future, but for now, this is what exists. Through English, I’ve been able to read important texts and engage with ideas that shaped who I am. If you want to work internationally as a contemporary artist, you can’t stay isolated—you have to step into a shared language.

Ghazel    

And most of the participants weren’t native English speakers either—they were Swedish, Algerian, French, Albanian, Panamanian, who had learned English as a second or third language.

Yutong    

You’ve been running the Tehran Summit for a few years now—how has it been received within Iran, and how visible is it locally?

Ghazel    

One important point is Instagram—it’s a major source of alternative information in Iran. That’s actually how Erfan and I connected: I posted my outrage about an artist who had used a swastika in his painting. It was in a show curated by a famous curator in Tehran. Erfan heard about it. He was the only person besides me to react to the use of a swastika in a show in Tehran. No one else reacted, and in my opinion, no one even realized just how unacceptable it was to do so in 2019. 
        When we started the Summit, we didn’t need a VPN to access Instagram, but now we do. 

Yutong    

When did that change happen?

Ghazel    

I think it was after one of the uprisings in November 2022. By then, the first Tehran Summit had already launched, and Instagram wasn’t yet blocked for it.

Erfan    

Our audience is still growing, but there’s also a wave of resistance. Some local art platforms in Iran explicitly refuse to cover the Tehran Summit. Being a counter-institution that challenges the major local gatekeepers’ authorities, they don’t necessarily like that. I take it as a compliment—it shows how powerful the Summit has become. We also deliberately avoid inviting the usual local celebrities who already dominate the audience. I want other voices to be heard. Abroad, we’ve built a solid audience, roughly half Iranian and half international. In Iran, we remain a minority, but we exist.
        At the end of the day, you’re creating this kind of project in a totalitarian context. After decades of living under such conditions, people can unconsciously reproduce the same power dynamics—wanting to be the sole figure, the single narrative. That tension is always there. It’s difficult, but it also shapes the urgency and intensity of what we do.

Yutong    

Can you explain the idea behind the logo?

Erfan    

I first came up with the logo around 2016. It was originally meant to be the logo for a collective I was starting with some friends, but it didn't work out. 
        Formally, the logo is based on the letter “T” in Farsi, the first letter of Tehran. Normally, this letter has one line and two dots, but in the logo I removed one line and rearranged the dots. It looks like a letter, but it’s actually unpronounceable in Farsi. 
        Conceptually, the logo comes from the idea of “black matter” or “dark matter,” which I encountered through Gregory Sholette’s writing. In cosmology, dark matter is invisible, but it makes up most of the universe—without it, everything would collapse. Sholette uses this as a metaphor for the art world: the vast majority of artists are unseen and underrepresented, yet they sustain the entire system. The logo reflects that idea: making the invisible visible, or at least acknowledging this “black mass” that holds everything together. 
        When the collective ended and the idea of the Tehran Summit emerged, the logo already existed. It felt right to use it.

Ghazel    

You initially wanted to call it the Dark Summit or something similar.

Erfan    

Yes, but Ghazel suggested Tehran Summit, which is way better. “Tehran” also carries the sense of darkness we were thinking about. In the logo, you see four dots coming together to form a black dot in the center. Without that gathering, the black dot wouldn’t exist. For me, that black dot represents collective thinking, the sort of speculation that emerges from embracing darkness.

Yutong    

The logo comes from this idea of “black matter,” the invisible mass that holds things together. How does that thinking extend into the Biennale—especially in its underground structure and the way it circulates?

Erfan    

The Summit, which Ghazel and I co-founded, and the Biennale, which grew out of my experience of the Sharjah Biennial in 2023, both carry a non-Eurocentric orientation. 
        The Tehran Biennale started in 2023. After I visited the Sharjah Biennial, I came back with a strong urge to create something, and I invited seven artists I knew. The Biennale took place across two cities—Tehran and Ahvaz. All of the works were socially engaged and ephemeral in their essence.
        The Biennale was shared through a digital PDF circulated to a very selected audience, almost like digital Samizdat, underground self-publishing publications evading the Official Soviet censorship—distributed off the radar. The PDF included a guide and a map, but access wasn’t direct: you had to contact the artists directly, and explain who you are, and then they would tell you when and where you could visit the work.

Yindi    

The name of Tehran Biennale comes from the historical Tehran Biennial, and I’m curious why you chose to inherit that name. Could you share a bit about the history of the original Tehran Biennial?

Erfan    

The term “Tehran Biennial” was created by Marcos Grigorian in 1958. After visiting the Venice Biennale, he returned to Iran and initiated the Tehran Biennial with the support of the Ministry of Culture during the Pahlavi era.

Yutong    

So it was actually legal.

Erfan    

Yes, it was legal because it was before the Revolution. That was also the period when the Shiraz Arts Festival took place, during the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, the Shah and the Queen wanted Iran to function as a bridge between East and West. This was the vision: to invite artists from the East, the Far East, and the Western world to gather in Iran, and some of the most radical art projects to this day were created. Artists like Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Peter Brook made groundbreaking works at the Shiraz Arts Festival.
        All of this came to an end with the Revolution in 1979, as these events were seen as representing Western values and were no longer tolerated. Almost fifty years later, I’m trying to summon the spirit of those initiatives again—the Biennial and the Shiraz Festival—but in a new body.
        In a way, it’s a kind of reincarnation: Marcos Grigorian was inspired by Venice, but I’m inspired by Sharjah—a different lineage, a different center.

Ghazel    

Yes, the difference is also that you’re doing something underground.

Erfan    

Yes, because the territory is different, and the relations are different now. That’s why I see it as an experiment. Biennials are usually created within cultural utopias, or at least to promote an image of a country as a cultural hub.
        For me, the core question is: can you have an art biennial in an art dystopia? And what does it look like to hold a summit under those conditions? Both the Summit and the Biennale are speculative and accelerative experiments in that sense.

Yutong    

Do you plan to continue the Tehran Biennale in the future?

Erfan    

I already did. The second edition took place in 2025, which officially made it a biennale. This time, I invited artists from Iran, Colombia, and China, with the intention of growing it into an underground biennale for the Global South.
        The third edition is planned for 2027. I want to keep it zero budget—as a pure speculation. The question for me is: what happens if we are truly living in an art dystopia? How do we survive, and how important is art in that condition?
        As funding cuts deepen and neoliberal logic insists that everything must prove its economic value, artists are increasingly treated as expendable. What happens if all support disappears? Can artistic practice still survive—can we still breathe? That is the question I want to pose, and one I hope to explore collectively with others.

Yutong    

It sounds really exciting. What does Tehran signify in the name today for you, or you hope it will signify, especially for audiences who aren’t based in Iran—does it refer to a location, a condition, a reference point, or something else entirely?

Ghazel    

For me, it’s important because we’re both from Tehran. The city grounds the Summit geographically—it shows that something meaningful is happening there beyond the decorative, commercial art that often circulates in fairs and auctions. Every edition of the Summit takes place from Tehran, so emphasizing that location matters.

Erfan    

I understand it as both a geographic and an ontological condition. In Tehran—or more broadly in Iran—it is impossible to operate an initiative like the Summit through official channels. One is constantly faced with ethical negotiations: whether to seek permission from authorities who exercise oppression, and what degree of compromise that would entail. Do you accept authorization and become absorbed into official structures, or do you refuse complicity and work as a heretic? For me, Tehran names a condition—a space in which institutions have to remain off the radar in order to stay faithful to their principles and to the reality they inhabit.

Ghazel    

I started showing my work underground in Iran in 1993 because I didn’t want to seek permission. So obviously, the Tehran Summit operates outside government approval—it’s completely underground. That’s what makes it interesting; anything legal wouldn’t be. Maintaining this underground position is very important to us.

Yindi    

Could you talk more about what you refer to when you say “underground”? The term can mean very different things in different contexts.

Ghazel    

Since the Revolution, exhibiting art in Iran has required official permission from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. It is not just for the space, but for each individual artwork as well. In 1993, after returning from France, I refused to go through this process. Instead, I showed my work in my family’s house and orchard outside Tehran, illegally, inviting people by fax the night before and opening the exhibition for only half a day. The fantastic part of this for me was that it turned me into a performance artist, and I continued working this way.
        Over time, regulations have shifted, but the rule remains: without permission, you cannot exhibit, screen a film, or organize an event. The moment you choose to work without approval, you are working underground.

Erfan    

To add to that, there’s an interesting concept by Hakim Bey, an American philosopher who lived in Iran at some point. He was fascinated by the idea of T.A.Z., Temporary Autonomous Zones—ephemeral spaces created outside the official framework to retain autonomy and agency for artists.
        For me, underground projects are exactly that—dark holes where artistic expression can unfold freely, away from the Sun’s empire and outside the visibility of institutions or what one might call the ultimate narrators. They are heretical spaces, governed by “demons,” to use my own vocabulary: spaces that resist monolithic, institutional, and monotheistic frameworks, and insist that other ways of living, thinking, and making are not only imaginable, but viable.
        That’s why it’s called the Tehran Summit or Tehran Biennale. It exists within Tehran—a city governed by a monotheistic framework—but it demonstrates that you can act differently, think differently, and express differently. Since 2022, with the support of Ghazel and later Una, we’ve been inviting artists, thinkers, and scholars who share this approach, exploring alternative interpretations of the world. This, for me, captures what it truly means to be underground; to preserve one’s autonomy. 

Yindi    

I wonder what kind of risks you are taking by doing these works.

Ghazel    

There is always a risk in Iran.

Erfan    

You can be arrested for basically anything.

Ghazel    

Yes. You can be arrested for talking to tourists. They can say you were “fishing,” just for speaking with a foreign person. So there’s always a risk, for everyone, all the time.

Erfan    

One of the reasons I chose to run the Summit in English is that it works like a coded language. It’s harder for them to immediately realize that something is going on.

Yutong    

So it’s like a game.

Ghazel    

Yes, you can bypass it. You always have to self-censor.

Erfan    

You have to be tactical. You have to come up with different strategies. I would say Iranians have been some of the best tacticians. There’s a reason Iran has such a strong history of poetry and philosophy. People were always living under sovereignty and oppression, and one way to speak without being caught was through indirect language, such as poetry and metaphor.
        Those poets taught us how to live. They criticized the government, power, and society—but through beautiful, coded language. That was the tactic: to hide meaning inside ambiguity. That’s why the Farsi language is so metaphorical and indirect. 
        That way of thinking is embedded in us—how to find new strategies, how not to get caught. That’s also the spirit of the Summit and the Biennale: finding new ways, new corridors, new escape routes, and lines of flight in the system. Finding how to navigate and move through it.

Yindi    

Are there any independent art spaces that you particularly like, or that you would recommend we look at around the world?

Ghazel    

I really like a space that doesn’t exist anymore. It was called CAMP/Center for Art on Migration Politics in Copenhagen. It was fantastic, but unfortunately, it closed down—mostly because of budget issues.
        It was located right next to a migrant community center called Trampoline House, which was much larger than the small art center. Still, CAMP was an incredible space. I always thought it would be great to have a space like that in Paris or Berlin. Anyway, it closed during COVID.

Erfan    

From my point of view, one of the most significant independent art spaces today is The Alternative Art School, an initiative founded by Nato Thompson. It operates as a truly inspiring digital campus, bringing together some of the most outstanding emerging artists I know from around the world and fostering a learning environment of exceptional caliber—at a cost equivalent to a cup of coffee a day!




In the weeks that followed the interview, political conditions in Iran escalated. We felt the necessity for returning to the conversation in light of the urgency of the moment. These questions were added on February 9, 2026. 

Yutong    

Since we last spoke, the conditions you describe—risk, censorship, exhaustion—have intensified dramatically in Iran. How does this moment reframe, or sharpen, what the Tehran Summit is trying to hold space for? 

Erfan    

Thank you for expanding the questions and for acknowledging the violence unfolding across Iran. It’s important to say that what we are witnessing now is not an unprecedented rupture, but rather the regime reaching yet another record in its long history of mass killing. The Islamic Republic has never exercised restraint toward dissent—dissent that, at this point, includes the vast majority of Iranians, both inside and outside the country.
        This moment clarifies why Ghazel and I were determined from the outset not to align the Tehran Summit or the Tehran Biennale with state institutions. Any such complicity would hollow out the very meaning and function of art under conditions of structural oppression. What does it mean to produce an art project while accepting support from a regime that murders children? And more urgently, how can one genuinely claim to stand with the people—or to believe in the transformative capacity of art, while operating within that framework? The question then becomes not whether art matters, but what strategies and tactics are possible, or necessary, for art to remain ethically and politically credible in such conditions.

Yindi & Yutong    

You’ve spoken about darkness and operating below the surface. In times of protest, and the war, does that darkness—chosen or unchosen—take on more layers—becoming heavier, or more necessary?

Erfan    

I think it’s already clear that I approach terms usually marked as pejorative—darkness, demons, monstrosity—from a different angle. For me, darkness has always been an ally of revolutionary movements. If you look closely at the footage emerging from Iran, most protests unfold at night, whereas state-orchestrated, pro-regime rallies are staged in full daylight. The reason is simple: those aligned with power do not fear surveillance, weapons, or being identified by the Ministry of Intelligence. For protesters, the night offers both cover and companionship—it shelters them. In this sense, darkness is not merely tactical but symbolic, echoing the Persian saying pāyān-e shab-e siyāh sepid ast—at the end of the black night, there is dawn.
       What makes the Iranian protests singular is that they occur under a theocratic regime led by a Supreme Leader who claims to embody divine authority, the “light of lights” of Abrahamic monotheism. Within this system, protesters are charged with moharebeh—waging war against God—a crime that can lead to execution without trial. As February 11 approaches, marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the city fills with banners quoting Khomeini’s declaration: “Our revolution was an explosion of light.” In this context, light and darkness are not metaphors but operative philosophical forces, structures through which Iran’s past, present, and future are being contested. As Jason Mohaghegh noted during the Animality series, organized by Ramin Alaei, Ali Jamshidi, and me, there is an urgent need for a new philosophy of the night, a rethinking of our relation to it altogether.

Yindi & Yutong    

In moments when people risk their lives, what do you think about the capacity of art programs or artistic gatherings? Where do you draw the line between responsiveness, solidarity, and the risk of instrumentalization?

Erfan    

This is an essential question, because it brings the issue of artistic positionality to the foreground. In moments of heightened risk and collective exposure, it is no longer possible for artists to remain in insulated, ivory-tower positions, treating lived realities as mere reservoirs of inspiration. Doing so collapses experience into a commodity. Artistic practice cannot be reduced to a professional routine; it carries a social and ethical charge tied to the kind of world it helps imagine and produce. Artists operate at the front edge of their societies. The term avant-garde itself points to this role, originating in the figure of the Janissaries from the Ottoman Empire era, elite forces positioned ahead of the main body to disrupt, break through, and reconfigure enemy formations. In this sense, artists function similarly: as agents of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, probing beyond dominant realities to open new trajectories, destinations, possibilities, and modes of collective thought.



Erfan updated the last 3 answers on February 10.

Ghazel was in Iran from January 2 to May 20. She was in Tehran throughout the 39-day war (February 28–April 6) and lived through the numerous violent attacks. She doesn’t want to comment on the situation now or then (during the War), as it is too recent. 

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