dash – interviewed by Tropical Tap Water

For the 30th edition of de Appel’s Curatorial Programme (CP) we have welcomed four collectives who are learning and practicing lumbung as a model and method for collective organisation. The CP is geared towards taking the lumbung practices of documenta fifteen as a case study. Lumbung during documenta fifteen developed into both a rhizomatic collective of collectives, and the practice of decentralised collective redistribution, transforming the art institution and its exhibitionary logic. This edition of the CP is dedicated to collectives whose art and curatorial practice is distinguished by its role as a conduit for the communities with which it engages. The programme is in collaboration with Sandberg Institute’s Temporary Master Programme and Gudskul’s Collective Study and extends into 2025/2026 as a fellowship.

Tropical Tap Water interviewed the participating collectives. Here you can find their conversation with dash collective. dash is an ecosystem that began its activity in 2023 in Isfahan, Iran, to experiment with a self-sustainable economy that utilises community resources. Each member of dash is involved in other collectives within the Isfahan community. By connecting these collectives and engaging in trial-and-error, dash reimagines an economy that integrates art with life, and theory with practice by drawing inspiration from local stories and actively participating in the local community. In this process, instituting, educating, and collective care became dash’s main activities.

Daniel, Tropical Tap Water (D, TTW): My name is Daniel. I'm here on behalf of Tropical Tap Water, calling from Mexico City.

Emili, dash collective (E, d): My name is Emili. I am based in Isfahan and Tehran, in Iran. My personal practice is focused on filmmaking, and in recent years, I have focused on making docu-fictions and researching urban studies and filmmaking, inspired by the city and its psychogeography. I’m also interested in how lunacy or madness can be a medium for imagining the city and making space for all people, people who use collective memory and their madness to make their own spaces in cities. With dash, my concern is around alternative education; how to make an infrastructure for a kind of informal educational institution, creating a network for sharing resources between each other. Because each of us are in different collectives we want to build these kinds of networks between each other's collectives.

Tara, dash collective (T, d): I’m Tara, based in Isfahan. I’m a performer and body practitioner, always curious about how movement brings people together. My work is a mix of theater, performative arts and collaboration with artists from different fields like video and music, because I love connecting different ways of seeing and creating. Part of my practice is inspired by indigenous rituals. Those deep, rhythmic traditions where dance and music shape collective memory and community. These forms fuel my work, showing me how bodies carry history and belonging. I also practice yoga as a way of self-care.

E, d: The story of dash started three years ago, during the political and economic crisis in Iran. People working in the arts in Isfahan, including ourselves, were questioning what we should do next. Every Monday for about a year, we gathered, sometimes with more than 200 people, in an art space to talk about our frustrations and discuss different ways of working in the field. We felt the necessity to be together and work together, especially with the lack of resources and the precarity of our situation. Some smaller groups emerged from this larger group, and dash was one of them. We started with 10 people, each of us already part of other collectives, trying to build an ecosystem of collectives: a collective care system that shares resources and looks for an alternative economic structure.
Collective learning is also important for us, as formal educational institutions and academies are ideological, inefficient, and exclusionary in Iran, so working on alternative pedagogies has become part of the care system for our collective. We have a nomadic structure, moving between four different spaces in Isfahan, most of them are the homes of the collective’s members that also function as art spaces. Gathering together is important for us. Because of the limitations and restrictions in public spaces, we have rarely been able to make things public or gather freely. Private and public spaces have different meanings in our context in Iran, so we see value in activating informal spaces instead. This way, we also merge art with daily life rather than seeing them as separate.

D, TTW: now how do you see your practice as dash in relation to the Lumbung Practice?

E, d: The Lumbung Practice can give us methodologies to understand how people, artists, and ecosystems manage resources. It comes from communities that have lived collectively for generations. It’s especially important for us that the participants and facilitators in the Lumbung Program come from diverse contexts that feel close to our own. Learning these methods and engaging with collectives in places like Mexico and Indonesia, while also connecting with resources here in Europe, opens us to knowledge exchange and collaborations that flow back into our ecosystem in a meaningful way.

D, TTW: Did you know each other before? How did you get to know each other? Did you get to know each other in these gatherings during the crisis? Or did you already know each other from before?

T, d: Some of us were old friends and collaborators, and some of us were not close to each other before forming this collective. Those Monday salon gatherings made us closer to each other and changed the way we see friendship and art.

D, TTW: Were you already collaborating as collectives before coming together as dash?

T, d: Yes. Many of us were involved in other collectives before dash, and these collectives helped shape the dash ecosystem. Some of us were already part of a study group that began informally and has continued for the past four years. Some members are part of an artist collective called Block and have worked together for a long time. In their group, they experiment with different exhibition algorithms in both conventional and unconventional spaces. Two of our other members are part of Va Space, which started 10 years ago in Isfahan. Va is a space for residency, collective education, and participatory art practice. Four of us, me and Emili included, have also collaborated at Isfahan Film Club, which is a collective that focuses on screening and producing experimental and low-budget films. Myself and another member are also already part of the Alternative Immersions group; we work on body practices and ways of collectively confronting trauma. Through this, we’ve brought physical activities into our collective care practices at dash. Other dash members are part of Noir White Space, which creates temporary and spontaneous platforms for public dialogue in urban spaces.

D, TTW: Are you considering continuing the Film Club or the Alternative Immersion in Amsterdam? How is that shifting now that you move away from Isfahan?

E, d: Some of the groups are continuing their work while also using the tools they’ve learned. Coming here changed our dynamics and created new needs. For example, the study groups are still active, and we’re trying to introduce new educational methods. Members of Isfahan Film Club, like me, are also continuing our film projects. While we were here, another space called Silent Ball Room emerged from dash in Isfahan. It operates both autonomously and in connection with dash. Many young artists have started their own study groups and workshops there, focusing on things like zines and working with sound. Our library and archive are now based in the Silent Ball Room, where Tara and I share our harvests weekly.

D, TTW: I was curious: the concept of Lumbung is coming from rural Indonesia. Are there similar practices where you come from?

T, d: Yes, actually, we have something very similar in Iran. There is a tradition called Buneh, which is an old way of working together in farming, especially in villages, and in some areas farmers still practice it. It was really common in places where farming was difficult because of water shortages or tough conditions. In Buneh, a group of farmers shared the work on the land, and each person had a role based on their skills. They also shared important resources like water and plowing tools, so everyone could benefit from the harvest. It wasn’t just about farming, it was also a way for people to support each other and stay connected as a community.

I think, just like Lumbung, Buneh was about sharing, helping each other, and making sure resources were used in a fair way. Even though things have changed, you can still see this kind of thinking in different ways today. There are some other examples, too, like the nomadic Qashqai people in Iran surviving despite the economy and state policies working against them. They used to be nomadic people, but many of them are now seasonal workers. They have interesting traditions of recycling and re-using materials.

D, TTW: What is a collective for you?

E, d: We see our collective as a big social body that includes small collectives. The care system, education, and economy are the core of this big social body. It's a kind of assembling of all the different points of view and all of the different resources. For instance, It's hard to continue filmmaking when you are alone, you really can't. But when you gather together in a group, it's immediately more clear what to do. One person has the camera, another provides the space, someone else has the network and connections. I think we also need to go deeper into this notion of collectivity and thinking together. Wehad this discussion in our collective that each of us should think about what is important for us and for our collective, and how to develop these points more. We like to imagine a flexible form of a collective that doesn't put pressure on just doing projects. Sometimes you come in and you contribute to a project and sometimes you need to rest, perhaps even for months. Also, diversity is really important; if all of us think the same, it's not truly collective. This diversity compels you to connect and to understand yourself more as a group or as a society. Since we are members with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and disciplines, we cannot say that we have one specific definition for a collective, but we can say we have some similar intentions for doing things, for gathering together as a community. We try to hold space for each individual's intentions and positions. Each individual should find a position specific to themselves in the collective. The group is another independent thing that lives on and it needs care from individuals.

Tropical Tap Water are professional jammers, open for hire for birthday parties, weddings, exhibitions, mournings, festivals and what not. Our dream is to play in a conference. The members are Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Diana Cantarey, Julian Abraham “Togar,” and Simnikiwe Buhlungu.