Public Art: Place Making or Focus on Values (Case study: Vali-Asr Street,Tehran)

Baharestan art festival, which was held in Vali-Asr Street in Tehran in March and April 2016 on the pretext of starting the Iranian New Year (Nowruz), has widely attracted the attention of artists and other people. This article attempts to examine the role of this urban art festival and similar festivals in placemaking and the improvement of the quality of urban spaces considering the potential and capabilities of these areas in the city. According to the prepared questionnaire, some questions were asked of respondents randomly selected from citizens with different demographic information about their comments on different aspects of the artworks presented in the festival. The results of statistical analysis of the questionnaire showed how this festival and similar events act as effective agents in development of placemaking and creation of common scenes using urban arts. Results revealed three key findings. First, the artworks of the festival were able to bring New Year’s perceptions with Iranian value attributes to the respondents’ minds. Second, the artworks were intended to make the public space lively. Third, this project had potential to act as a medium to spread positive messages among the citizens. According to the results, this festival and similar urban art projects can further be considered as a new form of Iranian contemporary public art.