Bakhtegan Lake, the second largest inland
lake and one of the most important migratory birds' habitat in Iran, has become
completely dry and literally turned into a salt lake since many years ago
due to various reasons including but not limited to constructed dam(s) on the
feeding Kur river, significantly reduced rainfalls, drought, etc.
The conceptual artist, Ali Rastegar, with
more than two decades of activities background in arts who was grown up and
lived in Shiraz near this phenomenal lake, decided to do an art performance at
the location of dried lake in order to raise the public's awareness and attract
attention from local authorities, media agencies, and the community to this
environmental catastrophe Although swimming the length of a lake or sea to
raise awareness of environmental impacts is not a new concept in the world,
swimming a (salt?) lake without any water present, may be considered as a
new idea of it's own category. Fortunately after that performance, many online
sites and newspapers in and out of Iran such as Deutsche welle and BBC Persian
covered that. And after about one month later, the minister of Energy traveled
to that area and releases large part of Bakhtegan's water that blocked behind
dams..
Hence, creating a media's headline titled
"A performance artist aims to swim dried Bakhtegan Lake with distance of
80km" will present a bitter irony with a chance of attracting more
attention to this disastrous phenomenon This performance was carried out by the
artist and his passionate team of 4 people within 3 days.fron
November13,2019 until November15, 2019
A fish tank with dimensions of 2.5 x 0.7 x
0.6m was transported, installed and filled with water on site (lake's central
location) and the artist performed on the spot swimming in the tank with
continuation of four hours each day.
