File 01 · Encountering Reza Abdoh
Bye-Gones
Bye-Gones: File 01 Encountering Reza Abdoh unfolded over two days through a sequence of four encounters, moving between digital mediation, performance documentation, conversation, archival material, and spatial installation.
About the File
File 01 is the first event in Bye-Gones, a series that sees the archive as both a place to preserve the past and a way to experience it again.
The starting point for this file is the work of Reza Abdoh, an artist whose practice existed largely through live performance, and whose works remain today through scattered images, sounds, texts, videos, drawings, documents, and accounts.
The file begins with a broader question:
When an artistic experience is inherently live, transient, and dependent on presence, how can it be preserved, transmitted, or activated again?
The four encounters
Encounter I — Telegram Bot
Beginning at registration, the project’s Telegram bot sent participants an irregular sequence of messages, documents, and materials, initiating the experience of Bye-Gones and preparing them for the encounters that followed.
Each participant entered this first encounter at the exact moment their registration was completed. Over the course of the process, the bot sent eight messages at different intervals, introducing materials related to the event and its curatorial framework. Entering Bye-Gones, therefore, did not begin at the physical threshold of the space, but through a digital encounter that preceded it.
Encounter II — Screening
The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice
A screening of Reza Abdoh’s The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice, presented with Persian subtitles translated and timed from the original performance text by Saye Theatre for the first time. The recording was shown across three surfaces with varying image quality. Visitors could move freely between them and watch the performance from different angles.
The translation and subtitling were among the earliest materials produced for the Bye-Gones project.
Encounter III — Conversation
Following the screening, artists working across theatre, choreography, performance, and the visual arts came together to discuss the relationships between performance, memory, the transmission of experience, and the archive.
The conversation opened with a short introduction by the curators, Hodjat Salimi and Maryam Lashkari. Guest artists Amir Rad, Sara Rasoulinejad, Mohsen Xedri, and Hedieh Ahmadi took part, with Avesta Mahmoudvand moderating. It gradually expanded into an open exchange with the audience, who were also able to engage with a selection of archival materials and independent publications.
Encounter IV — Interactive Installation
With your first step into this labyrinth, you become an Orpheus descending into the world of what remains.
You are not allowed to look back, yet the past never takes its eyes off you.
The image leaves a trace of a moment. Sound separates from the body. And performance disperses into fragments.
Returning to the past is impossible. But perhaps it is possible to pass through what remains of it once again.
On the second day, participants entered an interactive multimedia installation composed of sound, images, documents, and other archival materials. The installation attempted to shift the archive from a silent repository into a living experience that could be encountered in the present. The labyrinth layout was chosen to further reactivate Abdoh’s works.
The installation also featured a selection of archival videos by Adam Soch, presented with the artist’s permission and shown in Tehran for the first time. The videos had originally been produced as source material for Reza Abdoh, who incorporated portions of them into several of his performances: The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice, Bogeyman, Tight Right White, The Law of Remains.
At the end of the labyrinth, visitors encountered a reprint of the original zine associated with the 1990 production of The Hip-Hop Waltz of Eurydice, reproduced with permission from its rights holders.
Guest Artists
- Guest artists
- Amir Rad, Sara Rasoulinejad, Mohsen Xedri, Hedieh Ahmadi
- Conversation moderation
- Avesta Mahmoudvand
Credits
- Curation & spatial design
- Hodjat Salimi, Maryam Lashkari
- Scenography
- Bahar Mirtavoosi
- Scenography technical consultant
- Mehrbod Omidipour
- Scenography assistants
- Aida Aghasi, Saeed Kanaanian
- Video installation
- El Shekari, Hodjat Salimi
- Projection mapping
- Zhaleh Abutalebian
- Poster design
- Ali Sabeti
- Assistant & coordinator
- Sara Moghaddas
- Telegram bot design & development
- Hodjat Salimi
- Photography & video documentation
- Yekta Tavakoli, Kasra Karimi, Maryam Lashkari
- Zine reprint
- Tuts Archive
Event acknowledgements
Adam Soch, Negar Azimi, Tiffany Malakouti, Mehdi Mashhoor, Hossein Salimi, Khaneh Honar Farvardin.
File 01 — Encountering Reza Abdoh. Part of the Saye Theatre event series. 20–21 August 2026, Khaneh Honar Farvardin, Tehran.
Video Report Production
- Script & direction
- Hodjat Salimi
- Video editing
- Amirmohammad Taghavi
- 3D modelling
- Saba Shafiei
Summer 2026 | Tehran
A more extensive archival presentation of the project will follow.
Documentation
