The Interior: Iran
20 September 2013
Babak Kazemi, From the series The Exit of Shirin and Farhad

The Interior: derived from a cinema and screen-writing term which is used to separate outdoor and indoor scenes, the notion may be read in terms of specialised knowledge about a particular situation that is revealed when we explore a deeper connection with a personal or social situation. The emphasis is also on the double life people lead as a result of societal pressure from local or international forces, which render their lives a hidden story, a personal diary of events. The real challenge perhaps lies in the paradoxical compulsions of a public outlook and personal belief living as a part of society yet being alone in ones discovery of the self.
With support from
With participation from
EDITORIAL
Exposure And Privacy
The history of photography in Iran has established its lineage with the documentary form. As a powerful tool in the hands of every citizen, the medium has functioned as a mirror in a country with a unique geopolitical condition – the desire to be a sovereign republic through a transparent and...
The Labyrinth
The ledger of images presented here is bound by the norms, boundaries and paradoxes that underlie works produced in an environment of uncertainty. There is a calculated depiction of halfway spaces, intermixed cultures, fragmented identities and forlorn people wandering in a world of chaos, trying...
‘What is Living? I Don’t Know’
Photographer Reza Nadji shoots an abandoned rooftop in Tehran, and the wall he captures bears an urgent scribble – What is living: I don\'t know. Perhaps in Iran, as a local proverb claims, doubt is the key to knowledge. As is the case with life too, this idea casts an unassuming air of...
The Other Living
The dramatic impact of images in Iran is contingent on their unique melding of artistic intent and political commentary. As a first time visitor, something that immediately struck me while travelling through the streets of Tehran were the large scale visuals of printed hoardings running along the...
Somewhere Between
What defines me? Where do I belong? Who am I? Posing these questions helps us define our concept of self, comprising various overlapping identities. These questions morph our sense of self by challenging fundamental paradigms of identity or identities that we create for ourselves. Such identities...
