About his “Recovered Barrels”, Asad-Bakhtiari explains, “Cleaned and all spruced up, the finished products are a cross between recycled art, environmental art, and upcycle. Each one is unique in style and color and continue to be multifunctional. Rescued from a fate of total destruction, the barrels tell a story of diversion, barter, overcoming resistance, metamorphosis, and recovery. As such, they stand as a testament to Iran’s modern and torturous history: from riches to dust, from shiny new to battered and barely surviving, from frivolity to austerity and then slow re-conversion…. [they] stand as a subtle reminder that in a city of extremes, it is the simple things that tell the biggest stories.”