A new installation outside the Yale University Art Gallery will allow participants the chance to have face-to-face communication with someone on another continent.

The feature element of a public art initiative called “A Portal between New Haven and Tehran,” the installation connects New Haven users with users in a portal in Tehran, Iran through built-in audio and visual capabilities. Tools to help translate between languages are also available for the users, whose identities are withheld from each other until the conversation begins.

Users can reserve the portal — a large, gold container on Chapel Street — for twenty minute sessions online.

“[The project] allows individuals to connect on an equal level and have a direct conversation,” Leah Motzkin ’16, who is involved in outreach for the installation, said in an email.

The installation is sponsored by Shared Studios, a multidisciplinary arts collective, and will be active until March 1.