Light a lantern and make a wish for peace

A host of Iranian artists are planning to send lanterns – bearing messages of peace and friendship – to cafés overseas. The lanterns are expected to sit on café tables and create an opportunity to promote public participation and make people from different cultures and geographical locations ponder on how to get closer to each other and help develop mutual understanding.

 

What comes below is a partial translation of a report Honaronline published on February 18 on the remarks of the project manager followed by a photo gallery of the unique project:

 

 

The Experience Project, which was unveiled in Tehran’s Etemad Art Gallery, is to be implemented in India, Turkey and France in next phases, said Mehran Rad, the manager of the art project.

In the first leg of a foreign tour, I will take three packages – ten Experience lanterns in each – to several Istanbul cafés which are the favorite hangouts of artists and intellectuals, he said.

One package will be given to Karga café in Istanbul, and the other two will be handed over to Barin and Ara cafés in the European portion of Turkey, Rad added. Mr. Ara Guler, the celebrated Turkish photographer, is the owner of Ara Café.

The cafés will put these lanterns on their table for 20 to 30 days, he said, adding the lanterns bound for Turkey feature pieces of writing in Farsi, English and Turkish on peace and coexistence.

This way they can make the customers contemplate the project’s subject, he said. […]

“Those interested can make a 15-second film on their wishes, upload it on their Instagram page or that of the Experience Project. Or they can email their video messages to us. […] Anybody with any mindset can make their own movies, but insults to different religions and ethnicities are red lines.”

India and France are the next destinations of the lanterns of the Experience Project. […]