The Spectacle of Politics – ‘Tent city’ of Shah Pahlavi – Persepolis 1971/2012 (2013)
VIDEO INSTALLATION AND PHOTOGRAPHS
For The Spectacle of Politics, Els Vanden Meersch drew inspiration from the festivities organised by the last shah of Iran in 1971 for the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. The event is considered an excess of the exuberant lifestyle of the shah and his wife and one of the triggers of the 1979 Islamic revolution. In an artificial oasis near the archaeological site of Persepolis, Parisian firm Maison Jansen designed 50 luxury flats with the look of traditional Persian tents. The concept of ‘Tent City’ was based on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the French site where a meeting took place between Francis I and Henry VIII in 1520 to strengthen ties between France and England. Four decades later, the tents have been stripped of all luxurious decoration and only their steel frames still stand. Vanden Meersch’s installation combines models of the original designs with images of the tents’ current state and alludes to the political recovery of a collective cultural memory.