Meet our team here: https://seeyouiniran.org/about-see-you-in-iran/#team
For anyone interested in See You in Iran’s history, this text might be helpful:
See You in Iran was initially created as an apparatus to battle against the misconceptions, obsessions, and manufactured realities that were associated with a constructed image of Iran. The strategy was to provide and grow a platform in which, contrary to the usual top-down structures of mass media, See You in Iran’s Facebook group members produce and present personal narratives about Iran. The members were asked and encouraged to contribute through sharing their perceptions and experiences on traveling to Iran. The new realities created through new narratives opened up new possibilities to learn and critically engage with negative and positive sides of living in Iran.
However, the scopes and effects of an alternative mechanism of representation are limited. After about a year from its foundation, the See You in Iran team realized that the large global network created in SYI community has potentials outside of social media to create new doors for creation, interaction, and organization inside Iran. The idea of having a hostel in Tehran was based on our political faith in the power of physical space in shaping the social life and everyday life practices. We noticed that instead of having Facebook profiles interacting with each other on our Facebook group, we can have actual bodies with different backgrounds in one space to meet, learn, and exchange with each other, .
Therefore, the hostel became a platform to materialize the virtual community and activities into concrete and sociocultural work.
The See You in Iran Hostel was soon accompanied with our next project: See You in Iran Cultural House. Apart from the economic and political sanctions that have been imposed on Iran for decades, Iran has endured cultural isolation for a long time as well. On the surface level, the issue has been caused by global networks of power, but the lack of sociocultural products that are consumable for international audience has also been limiting the opportunities for cultural exchange and has created a discursive gap between Iran and the rest of the world. We believe that this gap is a major source of misconceptions about Iran and Iranians that lead into destructive sociopolitical outcomes.
Therefore, we defined the See You in Iran Cultural House as a physical and online Iran-centered and globally-oriented collective, producing content and organizing events through which foreigners and Iranians can connect. By holding a wide range of events such as workshops, talks, movie nights, art exhibitions, jam sessions and etc., we have been trying to go beyond the reductionist and obsessive representation of Iran. We highly value our cooperative and democratic organization structure and willing to collaborate with like-minded individuals, NGOs, organizations, and companies. So here is the invitation for you if you believe you can contribute by any means to the See You in Iran vision, to open new doors to Iran through cultural activities. Please contact us at info@seeyouiniran.org
