Located at 3005 Massachusetts Ave N.W., the former embassy of Iran in Washington D.C. has been shuttered for four decades. The vacant and abandoned building embodies a contradiction: it is a ruin due to its deteriorating condition caused, in large part, by the ongoing US sanctions on Iran, yet it is privileged with exceptional protection thanks to its ‘foreign mission’ status. Taking the building’s symbolic and material status as its point of departure, Royal Debris is a rumination on borders, displacement and ruination through excursions into family history, architecture, poetry and contemporary art.
