Mohammad Razaei-Kalantari
Mohammad Rezaee-Kalantari was born in Sari in Mazandaran Province of Iran in 1991. He started his artistic career as a theater actor and director, directing his first stage production in 2007.
In 2012, he presented “The Bridge,” a highly acclaimed performance designed and performed as a protest against road construction in the woods located in the north of the country. The event served as the starting point of his artistic trajectory.
Rezaee-Kalantari curated a series of lectures and exhibitions on the subject of contemporary art in Mazandaran Province in 2013. Starting from the spring of 2014, these events have continued as part of “Ezdaar Projects” which defines itself as an independent platform for art projects. Through a comprehensive program of panel discussions, courses and workshops, exhibitions, etc. in various cities in Iran, Ezdaar seeks to balance out a lack of adequate academic education in contemporary art, to encourage and promote new experiments in this field, and to help expand its territory beyond the capital.
In December, 2015, Rezaee-Kalantari started Tandis magazine’s special section focused on art outside the capital, examining and covering visual art events and projects outside Tehran; “Art Outside the Capital” was thus published as the magazine’s two special features on this subject in issues 317 and 318 in February, 2016.
“Ezdaar” is currently focusing on deserted urban spaces, and the multifaceted nature of the project allows for addressing notions of memory, forgetfulness, ruins and wrecks through a series of conceptual and artistic reflections. “Coming Soon,” “Āb ānbar-e-No” (The New Water Reservoir), and “Farahabad Mosque” are some of such projects Rezaee-Kalantari has curated so far.