Ali Banisadr, “The Gatekeepers,” 2009, oil on linen.

See more of Banisadr’s work at his website, and see a video with him about his work at France24.

Sustainable low-cost architecture by Nader Khalili. 

Khalili’s earth bag constructions are incredibly simple to build and within reach of people with even the most limited resources, which was always his aim. All that is necessary is to fill bags full of earth and lay them in a circular plan. According to the Aga Khan Foundation, “these shelters serve as a prototype for temporary housing using extremely inexpensive means to provide safe homes that can be built quickly and have the high insulation values necessary in arid climates.”

Despite being made from earth, air, water, and fire – the elements so crucial to Khalili’s metaphysics – these homes also include aesthetically-pleasing domes and arches and perform well in seismic conditions. Most importantly, a 14 square meter earth bag home costs little more than $4 to construct, the Aga Khan Foundation wrote in 1995. Today they will cost more, but not much.

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In addition to writing six books and translating over 300 Rumi poems into English, Khalili found time to initiate the Geltaftan Foundation in 1986 and the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture – CalEarth – in 1991.

He is also responsible for a host of uber-sustainable designs including a futuristic community for 5,000 people in New Cuyama, California, a 20,000 strong community in Isfahan, Iran, and several earth-bag shelters, in addition to well over 100 “normal” commercial and residential projects.

The LA Times recently reviewed Orchid Grill & Kabob in Tarzana, CA, and started out with this description of their fesenjoon. If you werent hungry before, you will be after reading this, but that isn’t the point of this post. I want to know: is the last sentence the best or the worst metaphor for fesenjoon you’ve ever heard? Seriously, I want to know.

Fesenjan — the Persian stew of poultry, ground walnuts and pomegranate — isn’t easy to make. The walnut oils scorch easily, and making it right takes two hours of constant stirring and attention. The result at Orchid Grill & Kabob tastes like glowing, homey heaven, a blast of pomegranate tang and nutty warmth and savory chicken.

The murky brown of fesenjan conceals a wild union of opposites — savory, almost sweet walnut and meat against the searingly floral sour of pomegranate. It’s like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that put on a glass slipper and was transformed into a Persian festival stew.

Babak Golkar, “Negotiating Space” (2012) a site-specific installation on view in his recently opened exhibition, “Grounds for Standing and Understanding” at the Charles H. Scott gallery in Vancouver. 

“Travels with a Paykan,” by Robert Tagg is no longer in print. Lucky for us, Fari Bradley at Six Pillars to Persia interviewed him this week so we can have a listen. 

Mehrdad Mohebali, The Last Supper II (2011), on view now as part of Mohebali´s exhibition “Mr. Passive,” at the Etemad Gallery in Dubai.

From the Etemad Gallery website:

Mohebali’s traditional painterly style draws on a classical approach in painting that documents his contemporary surroundings in vivid colour tones that are defined by shadows cloaking parts of the work. This traditional technique of Chiaroscuro, using light and dark tones, makes his composition exceptionally complex and delicate. His paintings are layered into a textual composition of many ideas and open to the viewer’s interpretation. It is for the viewer to look at these specific scenes and take from it what they see as a ‘message’; equally the works appear as a sublime landscape of people. His artistic career can be summarised as a documentation of the conditions of living in Iran.