A Persian expression “Nafas az Jay-e garm” literally translates “Breath from a warm locale” in English and is often used to describe where one is distanced from reality because of their financial and/or political standpoint. In most cases, these individuals do not encounter the everyday day-to-day experiences of society simply because they have lived overseas.
Often this expression has been used as an irony. Dehkhoda writes in “Amsal o Hekam,” his encyclopedia of Iranian Proverbs: it can be pretty much unrealistic to accept an individual’s opinion that takes their breath in a warm locale. Warm locale here refers to a comfortable place.
We borrowed the expression to address a situation where artworks with no references to exotic elements, political issues, etc. – are less likely to be selected for exhibitions of contemporary Iran. Despite their qualities and significance, they have been constantly filtered out and undermined for not being newsworthy or direct enough to be consumed together with an ideal news hour spent over dinner. With this expression, we also refer to EU decision-makers in politics – specifically about Iran – as spectators who “breath from a warm locale.”
In this collection of works, artists chose elements such as daily concerns, news, a building, a neighbor, and an animal trapped in a cage. Each of these relates to the personal matters of the artists who think freely and then create. Social and political restrictions can never be involved in creating these works. So long as we breathe, we are free to think and to create. Curators of “Breath from a Warm Locale” (Nima Bahrehmand and Amirali Ghasemi) try to collect the numerous artists With different concerns and create space for the assignment fully unbiased free-thinking skills to understand whatever the audience thinks is correct, do we truly deal with the expression mentioned above?