“Hello” was a temporary public art project by artist and designer, Parisa Tashakori. The project was installed in a high-trafficked area of Boulder, CO, near the public library, bike paths, and downtown walking mall. Using a twelve-foot section of chain link fence, Tashakori wove colorful nylon fabric into the grid of the fencing to create a large-scale text-based artwork that provided a simple greeting to passersby. Over the course of the three-month installation, Tashakori was on site re-weaving and transforming the text from “hello” to “hola” to ”سلام”, a few of the languages spoken in Boulder, including English, Spanish, and the artist’s native Persian.

Tashakori’s work as a designer and artist is focused in the field of social and cultural design. Recently relocating from Iran to the United States, Tashakori observed that greeting one another with a formal, “hello,” is not universally customary for Americans in the same way that it is in Persian culture. In Colorado, Tashakori recognized that Boulder residents share the Persian value of acknowledging one another’s presence with a greeting of, “hello.” This project celebrated diverse cultural heritage through a gesture familiar across cultural barriers.

https://boulderarts.org/public-art/temporary/