The protest images coming out of Tehran this week following the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are nothing less than spectacular. As you’ve probably read in the New York Times, foreign journalists are quickly being expelled from Iran and much of the opposition’s organization is happening over social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Even though we, as learned people (I know that sound erudite, but deal with it), know as much–this is probably the first instance that anyone my age has seen mass visual evidence that the people of Iran are diverse in their beliefs and not being submissively shepherded by their radical government officials.
Beyond the powerful pictures of tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets, though, are the incredible images of street art, graffiti, protest signs, and other forms of creative expression popping up all over the internet. There’s a raw beauty and immediacy to the work that reminds us art lovers of the innumerable purposes of art beyond commercialized aesthetics.
One of the best images I’ve found (pictured above) is a work of graffiti by the Tehran-based street artist who uses the moniker A1one (thanks to SP the Ghost for the tip!). Click here to check out A1one’s website that links to his (or her) Facebook and Flickr pages. Also, the blog FryingPanFire has assembled a small grouping of images collected from around the internet. Any incredible pictures you find, please leave a comment here with hyperlinks!
Hello mate. They’re not images collected from the internet. They’re images given to me at source.
Cheers for spreading the word….
L @ FPF