The collection of Mitra Arbab Saljooghi coins was formed when she was a university student. She considered the coin as a blank page to record the events of life that are not recorded anywhere. Most of these events were related to the events of the country and their impact on the artist’s personal life.
In her last year of university, her thesis project was the study of coin motives, and by studying coins, she realized that coins are one of the best historical references to events. If there is no document from a historical period, the political, economic, and cultural situation of that period can be understood based on their gender, size, characteristics, and most importantly their designs.
Each of the bronze coins tells us about the difficulties. In the beginning, the golden color of the coin was engraved with the date of minting, which indicates the peak time of that difficulty, for example, a beggar’s hand comes out. The coin that wants to hit the outside is related to 2009 or the tied tongue which indicates suffocation in 2010.
Coins are a symbol of the common currency and normally appear in «flat» forms. They do not have depth and are very outright and sometimes cruel in the judgment of value.
However today life events are actually the depth they enjoy; likewise, the concepts crystalized in these designs.
In the history of art, to be «common» refers to events that have turned into forms. Constant entrance of events into the realm of «forms» is actually what unceasingly happens in art. In fact, artists redefine their lives in exhibiting forms. In this exhibition, all those concepts that are formless, mal-form, or alien in the world of forms like politics, ethics, birth, providence, motifs, etc. are being formed in an artistic piece. Objects with potential and multidimensional perceptions are shown here.
Javid Ramezani

Bronze coins

Each of the bronze coins tells us about the difficulties. In the beginning, the golden color of the coin was engraved with the date of minting, which indicates the peak time of that difficulty, for example, a beggar’s hand comes out. The coin that wants to hit the outside is related to 2009 or the tied tongue which indicates suffocation in 2010.

Silver Coins

After receiving the coins as sculptures, she decided to make them in real dimensions, but these works were not useful as small coins, the artist turned them into pendants to become common in society.

Value

A big coin in the hands of a beggar In 2012, with the decline in the value of the national currency of Iran compared to other countries, the economic situation was very frail, and poverty was rapidly increasing.

Toy

It was implemented in 2018. It is a symbol of the coin being a toy and a game that needs tuning, but the tuning toy is broken and becomes junk, and no matter what direction you turn it, nothing else happens except the sound of tuning. This coin was an interactive work in that the audience finds out about its failure by turning the coin.

Absurd

The absurd coin was implemented by Mitra in 2018, while the value of the national currency and the country`s economy was supposed to be better during a twenty-year plan, but a few years before the end of that program, there was still no positive effect, and the value of the national currency was dropped. The artist in this artwork emphasizes the absurdity of this theme by placing the dots of the letters P and Ch (in Farsi) in the form of steps up and down.

modesty

Leg coin was designed in the common collection for wall installation and was a symbol for naked legs that popped out of a coin and growing olive leaves, its reminiscent of the old times when with the revolution of Iran in 1979 prostitution and the objectification of women and using women for profit was rampant. The wall coin with the date “1979” was designed for this sole purpose.
This coin with its unique design asked the question that has prostitution and corruption have gotten worse or not.