Photographer data protests to maintain the free press alive

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The Second Saturday Lone Star Arts District occasion at 107 Lone Star occurs as soon as a month.  Artists open up their studios to people who’re simply ambling by.

Photographer Ramin Samandari is a kind of artists. Samandari grew up in Iran however left his dwelling nation in 2007.  He’s attended dozens of Iran protests right here in Texas since then, and his present exhibit characteristic photographs from these protests.

“Outside of Iran, there’s not a whole lot we can do, other than just stand in solidarity with the people in Iran who are living with this and dying day to day,” he stated.

The Second Saturday occasion is going on on Saturday and has the artists there opening their studios to the general public for a neat city get together. And his photograph exhibit goes deep into this theme.

“I’ve been photographing, going to as many of these events that I can, since 2009. In 2009 was a big demonstration in Austin,” Samandari stated. “People from San Antonio came and that was right after the sham election of Ahmadinejad that they basically stole the election. And thousands of people marched in the street in Austin. So it starts from there and continues to the most recent ones.”

Samandari can’t assist however see a recurring theme in current American demonstrations, whereby the hopes of freedom-loving Americans are generally dashed by these to whom freedom means little.

This theme and others impressed photographic artist Ramin Samandari to construct an exhibit on protests by Americans — and ex-Iranians — in San Antonio and Austin. He shot footage in regards to the protests right here, however protests held in Iran triggered a really violent response.

“This recent crackdown and mass killings that have been unprecedented. I went through all the images and put together sort of a collage-type photographic exhibit where the pictures are not individually printed and framed or anything like that,” he stated. “It’s just I printed them on long rolls, so a combination of multitudes of images from all these events that I’ve gone to,” Samandari stated.

His Magical Realism Studio within the Lone Star Arts District can be open to the general public this Saturday night time.

“When it comes to something that’s happening on the other side of the planet, and news directly doesn’t really come out of Iran, other than the news that the authorities want to put out, there’s no foreign journalists stationed in Iran to report directly,” he stated.

There are those that suppose protest is a waste of time. Not Samandari. “I believe it issues. It issues for individuals to point out solidarity and present their displeasure,” he stated.