Barcelona’s Museu d’Art Contemporani (MACBA) presents ‘Filtracions’ the first individual exhibition in Spain by the Iranian artists Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi. Under the umbrella of its interest in the contemporary art of Africa and the Middle East the museum’s exhibition investigates the implantation of modernity in Iran, from the occupation by the English to the industrialisation that accompanied the extraction of oil right up to the Islamic revolution of 1979. A unique installation that features two video presentations as well as a series of objects and images taken in the main from the archives of two institutions, those of the oil company British Petroleum (BP) and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts (TMOCA) in Iran, whose archives extend from the end of the 19th Century right up to 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini closed the museum.
The exhibition also features the video art installation, Seep, which documents the visit by both artists to the south eastern region of Iran, specifically to those areas of the country where petrol is so plentiful that it can be seen floating on water and which also gives the exhibition its name.