قصه یوسف و آن قوم، چه خوش پندی بود
به عزیزی رسد، افتاده به چاهی گاهی
What fine counsel lay in the tale of Joseph and his people —
Sometimes the fallen find their glory at the bottom of a well.
— Hafez Shiazi - 14th Cent Persian Poet
ON THE NAME
Arvand
Arvand is the ancient Persian name for the Shatt al-Arab—the great river formed where the Tigris and Euphrates meet, flowing past Abadan and Khorramshahr into the Persian Gulf.
In the Shahnameh, it carries the name by which Iranians still know it: swift, ancient, inseparable from the south.
The Iran–Iraq war was fought along its banks. It was the river that divided and defined the conflict's geography—and the river that ran behind a grandmother's courtyard in Abadan, present before everything that happened, present still.
This platform is named for that river.
Not as commemoration—as continuity.
THE PROJECT
Six Works. One Memoir, One Exhibition
The City After Silence is a single project in two forms: a literary memoir in two voices and an exhibition of six digital works. The book and the exhibition are companion objects—the same material, the same geography, the same reckoning. It is a reckoning with memory, history and the ordinary lives shaped by war.
CHILD
MEMORY
TIME
BOOK
ARCHIVE
THE EXHIBITION
Six digital artworks in the tradition of Iranian surrealism. Each work is a visual poem. None an illustration. Together they explore memory, absence and survival through symbolic landscapes.
Each work exists as a single archival edition. No reproductions are authorised.
Acquisition by appointment.
THE ARTIST
Arvand was born in Esfahan — a city known for centuries for its science, its architecture, its art, long before it was known for anything else. He grew up in Tehran, and has lived in London for most of his adult life.
He trained first in computing and telecommunications, and studied English literature without finishing it — a decision that has quietly shaped the way he writes ever since, somewhere between the precision of an engineer and the unfinished sentence of a novel he never handed in.
In recent years his work has increasingly involved artificial intelligence — not as a novelty, but as another instrument, the way a photographer might pick up a different lens. The six works in this exhibition were made with it. The life behind them was not.
The City After Silence is his first major project under this name. It will not be his last.
THE BOOK
A literary memoir in two voices: the child who experienced and the adult who reflects. Neither is the whole truth. Between them, perhaps, something closer to it.
The book and the exhibition are companion objects — the same material in two forms. Each of the six works in the exhibition corresponds to a chapter.
Published under the Ravenhalls imprint, London. Available to publishers, cultural institutions, and collectors.
ACQUIRING A WORK
Unique Archival Editions
Each work exists as one unique archival print. No reproductions, no digital releases.
Museum-Grade Materials
Printed on Hahnemühle archival paper or canvas with pigment-based inks. 200+ year longevity.
By Appointment Only
All enquiries are handled personally by the artist.