dash ecosystem

dash is an ecosystem that began its activities in 2023 in Isfahan, Iran, experimenting with self-sustaining models of economy that draw on shared community resources. The ecosystem continuously adapts to the needs of the local community and develops through processes of trial and error in response to ongoing social, political, and economic crises. One of dash’s central processes is reclaiming the socio-cultural infrastructure of Isfahan’s artistic community, where self-instituting practices, alternative approaches to economy in its broader sense, and collective care have become its main concerns.

Each member of dash is also involved in other collectives and initiatives within the Isfahan community, working toward interconnected and community-based approaches to culture, pedagogy, and self-organisation. By connecting these collective practices, dash seeks to reimagine forms of economy that reconnect art with everyday life through local stories, shared knowledge, and active participation within the community. The ecosystem later became part of the Lumbung Practice programme at de Appel and Sandberg Instituut.

Below, you can read about some of the spaces and communities within the dash ecosystem:

Silent Ball Room

Silent Ball Room emerged in 2024 from collective concerns around making life more livable and creating spaces for thinking together in Isfahan. From the beginning, it was not tied to a fixed location; its activities moved between homes, studios, workshops, and urban spaces. Care, shared life, and practices of economy form its core, while collective study sessions, readings, film screenings, a library, embodied practices, and the search for new ways of living and working together shape its activities.

For us, Silent Ball Room is more than a group; it is an unfolding space formed at the edges of places and times. From Hammam Choobi to cemeteries, from Mount Sofeh to homes, workshops, and parks, we gather between silence and sound, imagination and reality. Here, everyday experiences and stories become hypotheses and tools for building shared life. Through listening to one another, sharing small resources, and experimenting with collective learning and mutual care, Silent Ball Room seeks to imagine and practice more livable forms of society.

Isfahan Film Club

Isfahan Film Club is a collective of filmmakers, artists, and cultural workers formed in Isfahan in 2022, focusing on experimental cinema, collective learning, and low-budget film production. Emerging in response to the increasing social, political, and economic challenges faced by filmmakers in Iran, the collective connects filmmaking practices to the broader realities of local communities while addressing the lack of accessible educational and production infrastructures through shared resources and collaborative methods.

Through screenings, discussions, workshops, and film production, Isfahan Film Club engages with underground and independent cinematic practices that often lack formal platforms for presentation or critical reflection. The collective approaches film not only as an artistic medium, but also as a tool for engaging with marginalized histories, silenced narratives, and everyday forms of resistance against repression, erasure, and exclusion. By working collectively and embracing multiple perspectives, the collective seeks to create spaces for alternative forms of storytelling, historical reflection, and imagining different futures.

Hammam Choobi

Hammam Choobi is a space for collective life, artistic practice, and shared learning. Founded in spring 1404 in Isfahan, it brings together artists and cultural practitioners through gatherings, collaborative projects, and occasional residencies. Hammam Choobi functions as a space for learning from one another, making together, and collectively imagining new forms of living and working.

The people involved in this Master Program: Emili Allahbeigi, Tara Jamali Gandomani, Fatemeh Bagheri, Samira Hashemi, Masoud Amoutaghi, Davood Dorra, and Silent Ball Room Members