Iranian Fantazy

Gilad Bar’s graduate design portfolio is a journey to an outlandish, vibrantly-imagined Tehran. The son of Persian Jewish immigrants, Bar grew up hearing stories about the sights, sounds, and inhabitants of the country’s capital, but is not permitted to enter Iran as a citizen of Israel. His resulting fancied conception of the city is constructed through fictional mid-century artifacts, souvenirs, and everyday items like cigarettes and legal tender- presented as if they were seen or collected on a vacation that cannot occur in reality. 

Bar’s design process is characterized by collage and the development of an eclectic graphic language, both of which borrow from and fragment the history of visual culture of Iran. In amplifying romanticized Iranian visual motifs, Bar evokes a distant nostalgia for an inaccessible place. His use of stylization and vivid color palettes explores what it means to appreciate Tehran’s beauty- in spite of the political barriers that exist between the city and diasporic Persian Jewry today.