Place-based heavy media and the city's cultural identity: A case study of the statue of Arash Kamangir in Tehran

In addition to their artistic function, the installation of large-scale sculptures in urban spaces plays a key role as "heavy visual and figurative media" in transmitting cultural and identity messages. The statue of Arash the Archer in Vanak Square, Tehran, is a prominent example of this type of media. This article analyzes the capacities and effects of this statue on the cultural identity of Tehran with a descriptive analytical approach of a semiotic interpretation type. The findings show that the statue of Arash has become a powerful media for reproducing national collective memory through explicit and implicit connotations, cultural codes (bow, arrow, hero's body), the function of "signal place", and the capacity for networking in the digital space. This work, by joining the tradition of ancient Iranian inscriptions, represents the continuity of the identity function of stone and metal media in Iranian history. The results show that the statue of Arash the Archer has been "released" like a mythical arrow in the urban space of Tehran, determining identity boundaries, drawing semantic horizons, and recreating the collective memory of citizens.