If you want a photograph from the collection Ramblings of a Flâneur, like "The Mosque Under Construction" for example, you can be sure that it will always remain in the under-construction state. This has nothing to do with the freezing of time in photography or to the fact that {Arash Fayez} has studied architecture. In Tehran there are a number of mosques and houses of worship that seem as if they will always remain in that incomplete state. It matters little if their domes will eventually be gilded or remain a rough iron skeleton; no matter what, at sunset, the weak sound of a call for prayer can always be heard against the backdrop of a yellow sky of Tehran, an example of which is the photograph of "The Azure Dome of the Mosque in Between Trees." Instead, you can buy "The Golden Minaret of Qods Mosque" whose golden flag will always be bellowing, be there wind or quiet. But if you want to see a real photograph, these won't do, because they have neither a beginning nor a middle nor an end, just like the photograph of "Four Loudspeaker Facing Four Geographical Directions", which although they resemble an anemometer but they will not turn to any wind or storm. They have remained in their place over all these year. And if in the over-polluted sky of Tehran there is any air left to breath, the sound of its reverberation will set off a tremendous storm in all four geographical directions.  

If you can't decide between "Soldiers of the Nation," "Azadi Square from Inside a Car" and "The Map of Iran on the Wall of the Den of Spies" I can't tell you which one to pick. "Soldiers of the Nation" who died for the sake of Islam will not go anywhere, they will stay right where they are. The Azadi Monument is difficult to reach for us and "The Map of Iran…"? It is not certain what will happen to it, so, it will depend on what you expect of Polaroids: A memory of yesterday, a continuation of now, or a forecast of tomorrow? Whatever they may be, the photographs of Arash Fayez make fun of it. We just have to wait for the end of this race to the death between his Polaroids and the city of Tehran.

In "Tehran, A City Without Sky" Fayez is two or three steps ahead…

If you want to buy one of the Polaroids of Ramblings of a Flaneur, watch out because there are a few fake ones slipped among them (those with editions), like celebrating the anniversary of the coming of the Messiah, a message for the newly married, emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran II. These Polaroids are fake but it seems that Fayez had no qualms to speak the truth. The good thing about this batch (the fakes) is that although they are fake they are not counterfeit. Counterfeits are haunted by their originals, like a counterfeit bill that lacks something of the original and will ultimately deliver you up. But a 3,500 toman bill (which doesn't exist), although fake, has something original to it, like Tehran, which has no equal, even if its being the seat of the state, its city planning, its celebrations and its decorations, are all fake… even if it has risen up against fraudulence.