In October 2024, in response to an invitation from Maryam Majd Art Projects (MMAP), eight members of the «Foj» collective held intensive brainstorming sessions to develop works for their upcoming exhibition.
The group started their collaborative efforts two years ago, and their first creative production was unveiled in March 2023, featuring eleven distinct projects at O Gallery in Tehran.
During these brainstorming sessions, following collective research on the city of Bandar Anzali, [Anzali Port] the group found common ground between the port city’s characteristics and their own concerns. Themes such as crossroads and intersections of different thoughts and beliefs, questions of identity, personal and collective memories, and the impact of distance on understanding and communication between individuals emerged as central. With this core concept in place, the group chose to expand on a previous project showcased in O Gallery, titled “I Walk Howsoever”—an animation project proposed by Mehdi Shiri—by further exploring the video as a medium.
In this project, «Foj» has produced the video “We Were the Ones Who Looked Into Each Other’s Eyes the Most”, focusing on three central themes: the challenges of arriving at a unified idea through collaboration between members, capturing both everyday and striking images of Bandar Anzali, and animating these scenes using the rotoscoping technique. The video features:- Rotoscoping animation of images from Bandar Anzali- Original footage of Bandar Anzali and photos taken during trips- Recorded images and sounds from the brainstorming sessions during the creative process.