Masoumeh Mohtadi – The 11th Persbook Annual Contemporary Art Exhibition

Masoumeh Mohtadi

Title: “Futile Circles”
Technique: Mechanical Installation
Dimensions: 0.4 x 1.25 x 2 m
Year: 2021

“In Iran, approximately 3 million tons of plastic bags are produced annually. Out of this 3 million, not even one percent is recycled.” (Excerpt from the exhibition statement)

We don’t contemplate the magnitude of the number 3 million tons (3,000,000,000 kilograms); it seems we diminish large numbers to make the tragedy appear smaller.

To visually represent the enormity of this number, I decided to construct a device with two pipes. The pipes rotate with the help of a motor. They fill and empty. Plastic bags placed between the pipes move from one side to the other, maintaining their promotional use, indicating the social class of those who participated in this initiative and provided their shopping bags for this project. The pipes move, showcasing the infinite cycle of production and consumption.

To calculate the square footage of plastic needed to fill the pipes of this device, a rectangular cube measuring 12 by 12 centimeters and 1 meter high was filled with shredded plastic, resulting in a final weight of 5 kilograms, equivalent to 500 meters of plastic tape with a width of 12 centimeters.

So, if we want to place 3 billion kilograms of plastic in similar boxes to this one, we would need 600 million boxes:
3,000,000,000 ÷ 5 = 600,000,000

Considering that each box contains 5 kilograms, equivalent to 500 meters of plastic tape, in 600 million boxes, 3 billion meters of plastic tape with a width of 12 centimeters will be accommodated:
600,000,000 × 500 = 300,000,000,000

In this artwork, approximately 1000 meters of plastic have been used. So, by wrapping this 1000 meters around one of the two hypothetical pipes of the device, a circle with a diameter of 50 centimeters was formed. Therefore, according to the calculations, by wrapping 300 billion meters of plastic tape around an imaginary pipe, a circle with an approximate diameter of 7500 meters will be created. The Burj Khalifa, with a height of 828 meters and 163 floors, is the tallest human-made structure. So, the pipe around which 3 million tons of plastic is wrapped is 9 times taller than this building, equivalent to a structure with 1467 floors.

This work has been created on a scale of one fifteenth. Each meter of plastic in it equals 300 million meters of plastic weighing 3 million kilograms in actual dimensions. To visualize 3 billion kilograms of plastic in these dimensions, tags with numbers have been attached to the plastics at 5-meter intervals and with a constant increasing pattern of 15 million, indicating the amount of plastic bag production in kilograms.

Masoumeh Mohtadi (born in 1983, Isfahan, Iran) chose to pursue painting after obtaining a diploma in mathematics and physics for her university studies and earned her bachelor’s degree from the Islamic Azad University and her master’s degree from Alzahra University. Since 2008, she has participated in over 20 group exhibitions, including the 7th Biennial Sculpture Exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and the Eco-Art International Exhibition at the Buda Castle Museum. She was awarded in her first serious presence in the field of painting at the 2008 Damounfar Visual Arts Festival and continued painting until 2013. However, due to attention to language as the main factor in communication, she turned to linguistics studies and attempted to challenge linguistic certainty and the five senses by embracing new mediums. Mohtadi lives and works in Tehran.

Masoumeh Mohtadi