Navid Afkari Sangari — an Iranian wrestler and dissident — was arrested in September 2018 and subjected to torture. He faced multiple charges, some of which were in connection with his participation in the protests that had taken place earlier that year. He was executed in Shiraz on 12 September 2020. The trial was widely condemned as unjust, and the confession used against him was obtained under duress. The execution was carried out in secret, without notice to his family or legal team, and his burial was conducted under heavy security, denying his family the right to mourn publicly.
After his burial, the regime systematically vandalised and ultimately destroyed his gravestone. Even the cypress tree his family had planted beside it—a traditional Iranian symbol of mourning and endurance—was uprooted. In response to this state-sanctioned erasure, the artist created a virtual memorial: Sarv-e Sangar II.
This 19-minute video brings together layered imagery and voices in a work that refuses silence. It features a sophisticated musical composition built around verses by Ferdowsi and interwoven with secret recordings from the courtroom, as well as Navid Afkari’s own voice messages to the world. His body and his tomb were taken, but his voice is resurrected here—bearing witness to the torture he and his family endured, and to the injustice that condemned him.
A QR code was placed on what remained of his physical grave, redirecting visitors to this digital cenotaph—transforming the site of violation into a portal of remembrance.
“In no way does translating the title as ‘Cypress of Sangar’ do justice to the multiple references the artist alludes to, but it may be useful to know that ‘sangar’ (literally ‘fort’, ‘trench’, or ‘stronghold’) is also the name of Afkari Sangari’s native village in the Fars province, where his beloved Persepolis is located. The artist borrows the image of his cypress from bas-reliefs at Persepolis. Every trace of his tomb having been obliterated, including the cypress planted nearby, the artist prominently displays boulders and the uprooted cypress and resurrects the man through his own voice, recounting the tortures he and his family endured and the injustices of the system.”
Composed with sound design by Pouya Pour-Amin, Sarv-e Sangar II is not only a memorial but a political intervention—where grief, testimony, and resistance converge in the face of enforced disappearance.
هر چه بر مزار زندهیاد نوید افکاری ساخته بودند، به طور نظاممند تخریب کردند. حتی سروی را که کنار او کاشته بودند ریشهکن کردند. این نشان مزار مجازی زندهیاد نوید است.