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‘Minab School’ exhibition kicks off
Araghchi: We will never forget as students’ story lives on through art
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited the ‘Minab School’ exhibition on Friday, August 28, at Tehran’s Art Bureau, where works by prominent contemporary Iranian artists commemorate the students and victims of the Minab school tragedy. The exhibition brings together paintings by leading figures of Iran’s contemporary art scene, including Behzad Shishegaran, Siavash Moghaddam, Gholamali Taheri, Morteza Asadi, Kazem Chalipa, Ali Nedaei, Hassan Yaghouti, Abdolhamid Ghadirian, Mostafa Goudarzi and Nasser Seifi, among others.
The event, organized by the Nam Cultural and Artistic Institute, explores the connection between art and national identity through the memory of the Minab students and those killed in the incident.
During his visit, Araghchi described the students as having become a “heroic saga” for the Iranian people, stressing that the tragedy would remain in the national memory.
“We will never forget, forgive or erase this incident from our memory,” Araghchi said, adding that Iran would continue to pursue the matter. He also voiced hope that the exhibition could be taken abroad and presented in different countries. “I hope we can take this exhibition to foreign countries, from country to country, and show these works,” he said, while questioning whether some would allow the exhibition to be displayed.
Araghchi framed the artworks as a means of confronting what he described as violations of human rights and urged international audiences to view the works to gain a direct understanding of the tragedy.
A US-Israeli strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, southern Iran, killed up to 168 students during the bombing campaign.
The exhibition features works by a broad group of contemporary Iranian painters and artists, including Masoud Shojaei-Tabatabaei, Kamyar Sadeghi, Ali Mirfatah, Mahyar Charmchi, Mostafa Ghorbani, Hossein Aeinibakhsh and Mohammad Ali Naderi.
The collection seeks to preserve the memory of the Minab students through visual art while underscoring the role of culture in safeguarding national memory.