exhibition of Sitting: Selective Collection of Malek Library and Museum

This exhibition is about different styles of sitting and the poems and proverbs in Persian about these styles and the social meanings that each style explores.

Artworks are not only for capturing figures of men, they are also symbols of social behaviors and life styles which during the time take different meanings. Sitting, in Iranian culture, has its own poems and proverbs and each style addresses differently. This exhibition is a narration of sitting, with its proverbs lied with artworks of Malek national library and museum.

Idioms and proverbs on “nešastan” (siting)

Bar sare pāy nešastan: Squatting

Pase zānu nešastan: sorrowful sitting

Kaj nešastan va rāst goftan: an ironical idiom which means being drunk but saying the truth

Do zānu nešastan: a way of sitting which includes leaning the knees under the legs to show the politeness of a subaltern before an elder

Be zānu nešāndan: defeat, vanquish

Bar sare yek pā nešastan: sitting on one leg in a way that the other leg is bent before the belly vertically

Gerdpāy nešastan: crossed-leg sitting

Be zānu nešastan: sitting on the knee, sitting politely

Bast nešastan: staying in the “bast” (“Bast” is a place for the criminals to take refuge in)

Saḥrānešin: Nomad

Majles nešin:the one who is a member of a session or meeting