Fuchsia Hart, Sarikhani Curator for the Iranian Collection on the V&A, spoke with Amak concerning the challenge’s origins in Nineteenth-century Iranian images, her connection to the princess, and the expertise of modifying work from the deeply private perspective of exile.
Fuchsia Hart: The V&A already holds 19th-century photography from Iran, so your work speaks fantastically to our current collections. Zanjir has a selected relationship with this era, and with Naser al-Din Shah, the ruler of Iran who was actually one of many nation’s first photographers – and, as you have identified, certainly one of its first household photographers. Can you inform us about your relationship along with his images and with Nineteenth-century Iranian images extra broadly?
Amak Mahmoodian: It’s fantastic to have this dialog with you, Fuchsia, about imaging an imagined dialog! Zanjir means “chain” in Persian, and the challenge is a approach of bridging the previous and current via a round narrative – embedded within the sequencing of the pictures and, after all, within the guide itself.
To clarify the challenge, it could be useful to start out with how the previous got here to satisfy the current. I studied images on the Art University of Tehran, and certainly one of my tutors, Bahman Jalali, was researching Qajar-era images and making collages with them. While I used to be engaged on my ultimate BA challenge, he launched me to the Golestan Palace. We would generally go to his studio in Tehran, the place he confirmed us books we could not entry at college. When I discussed my curiosity in household images – rooted in my relationship with my circle of relatives and the best way I got here to know absent family members via portraits throughout the years of revolution and battle – he steered I go to the museum’s archives of Nineteenth-century household images.
Golestan Palace is within the coronary heart of Tehran, a panoramic place with its mirror corridor and diamond gallery. But for me, the connection was totally different: I knew this museum had as soon as been the house of the Qajars, and that it was the place images first arrived in Iran. Naser al-Din Shah obtained the primary digital camera as a present from the Queen of England. Before that, he had tried portray however wasn’t notably expert, so images grew to become a unprecedented medium for him – he might seize and create photos rapidly. He constructed his first darkroom in 1868 and have become very lively as a photographer.
As a king, sadly, he wasn’t profitable – that is the historical past of Iran. But I nonetheless imagine, after almost eight years of analysis, that he was a outstanding artist and a outstanding supporter of artists. He photographed many topics – documentary work from Tabriz, Tehran, numerous cities he travelled to – and amongst his topics was his household, the ladies dwelling within the harem at what’s now Golestan Palace.
What was fascinating to me was his strategy as a household photographer. Because of spiritual and cultural circumstances, no foreigner might enter the harem, so he was the one photographer documenting his household in such varietym– basically, he grew to become the primary household photographer of Iran.
I went to the Palace in 2002. They gave me entry to eight unique albums with velvet covers and the king’s handwriting. He had a outstanding course of: he at all times wrote captions beneath the pictures – who the individuals had been, the placement, the event. This grew to become the primary stage of my analysis. After a number of weeks, the museum provided me a place figuring out the names of the ladies in 48 household albums. In return, I might copy 14 images for my analysis. That was a dream come true.
FH: Can you inform us extra about Taj al-Saltaneh and the connection you developed together with her via her diaries?
AM: Taj al-Saltaneh lived 136 years earlier than me. When I learn her diaries, I realised we did not know a lot about her, but she was one of many king’s daughters, his favorite by many accounts. She was extraordinary; an activist, a feminist, a poet, and a painter. She spoke and wrote in 5 languages: French, English, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
What struck me was the connection between her handwriting and the pictures. It was each seen and invisible, seen and unseen. I used to be taking a look at materials fully related to a visible language, and at diaries with no photos in any respect, but I might visualise her phrases. You know the way if you learn fiction, you may see the room, really feel the temperature, image the characters? That’s how I felt studying her diaries. Perhaps as a result of it was one lady studying one other lady’s phrases throughout 136 years.
There had been many variations between her period and mine, but additionally profound similarities: a shared sense of company, of preventing on your rights, which was current in all her writing. She was the primary individual to take away her scarf in courtroom. She was a princess, however after I learn her diaries, she did not really feel like one. She was like a knight in armour, preventing for her rights. When her husband was untrue, she went to courtroom, fought for a divorce, received, and raised her 4 kids alone.
If she had lived in my period, she would have been certainly one of us – a fighter, breaking via faith, custom, and tradition. That’s why I grew to become so interested by her writing. From 2004 to 2009, earlier than leaving Iran, I took the pictures that will finally develop into a part of the work you now maintain.
FH: It could be fantastic to listen to extra concerning the trajectory of the challenge. I do know you started by taking particular person images, however the work reworked, finally changing into the guide. I perceive this was formed considerably by your expertise of leaving Iran and dwelling in exile.
AM: The form of the challenge was fashioned firstly by the expertise of dwelling in Iran, after which by modifying and making the guide in 2019, nearly twelve years after the challenge started. The sequencing got here via the lens of experiencing exile, distance, and hope – the hope of returning.
When I began, the challenge was known as Niqab, which means “mask.” It was about us, the individuals of Iran – our faith, traditions, id, our women and men. It was additionally about others and their perceptions of us. I used to be travelling between Iran and the UK, engaged on proposals for my PhD, and thru conversations in Western contexts, I might see the distinction between the fact at residence and the constructed actuality within the media.
So Niqab grew to become a challenge about them, about these constructed photos. That’s why I hid the faces of up to date individuals behind the masks of the previous. I conceal in hope of unveiling. Through the challenge, I invite audiences to consider what lies behind these masks – the fact of those individuals, their challenges and strengths, their id and tradition, the battles they’ve fought for many years towards dictatorship.
I photographed individuals I knew – neighbours, household – as a result of it was a difficult challenge. Between 2002 and 2004, as a photographer, I wanted permission to {photograph} in public locations. When I wished to take the masks, constructed from historic Qajar photos, into public areas, I used to be denied permission. So I stated I wished to {photograph} the parks of Iran as a result of I used to be involved about deforestation and development. They gave me permission. That’s how the parks grew to become my canvas. If anybody requested what I used to be photographing, I might say, “The park”, with out explaining the true idea.
The challenge completed for me round 2008. It grew to become a proposal for my PhD and a easy challenge on my web site. And then I got here to the UK, and I began engaged on Zanjir in 2019.
FH: You’ve spoken about dialog being on the coronary heart of Zanjir – the which means of the phrase as “chain,” the linking of previous and current. Can you inform us concerning the dialog that modified the way you current these photos?
AM: In 2019, three years after publishing my first guide, Shenasnameh, which the museum additionally holds, the writer contacted me. He had seen the challenge on my web site and wished to make a second guide. I believed naively that it will be easy – Niqab had been prepared for eight years. But after I sat on this room, my studio, and went via the negatives to scan them, it was extremely troublesome.
I used to be taking a look at these individuals after ten years of exile and separation. I knew the faces, however in some images, I could not bear in mind them anymore. I could not bear in mind voices, smells, even the construction of homes. The locations had develop into unfamiliar, but I carried them with me. I imagine our residence travels inside us – that is one of many strains of poetry I exploit in Zanjir. Another is: “I live in the past.” That was precisely what I used to be feeling.
One of an important moments was discovering {a photograph} of my mother and father performing for me behind the masks, alongside an outtake displaying them with out it. I believed: my current – these days – is now my previous. My father handed away. I did not see him. I have not seen my mom for ten years. I used to be experiencing the identical historical past, the identical distance.
I went again to the writer and stated I wanted extra time, no less than six months. There had been gaps within the sequencing I could not resolve. Then I remembered Taj al-Saltaneh’s writings. Her diaries helped me connect with my previous, as a result of they’re principally about her household, her reminiscence, her homeland. Her diary grew to become a map for the challenge, a path. This imagined dialog between us grew to become a approach of structuring, modifying, and sequencing my images in response to her phrases.
In a approach, she saved me. I might edit my images in response to her writing. There had been moments after I might visualise her diaries however could not discover a visible response in my images. That’s after I thought: within the historical past of images, we discuss writing with mild. What if I write with phrases after I can not see these images?
I attempted to take images in Bristol, however I could not see these moments externally. So I started to write down poetry in response to her poetry, and to write down the pictures I had in my head however could not discover exterior. They had been inside images relatively than one thing I might doc. That’s how the challenge modified its title to Zanjir (chain), connecting previous and current, talking about id, reminiscence, land, and distance.
FH: The challenge reached its ultimate type in 2019, which is now itself a second prior to now. How do you view the work now? And given the present state of affairs in Iran, what can wanting again throughout many moments prior to now inform us about immediately?
AM: It informs us about immediately and the longer term. It tells us there’s a technique to transfer ahead by wanting into the previous.
I by no means name myself an activist or a feminist, however this challenge is a feminist physique of labor. One of the issues I’m most grateful for is introducing Taj al-Saltaneh to the modern period. When we discuss Nineteenth-century activists, we title many ladies from all over the world, however Taj was not often talked about. People did not know her. That created a sorrow in my coronary heart. She was so totally different from different princesses, at all times together with her armour on. One of the guarantees I made to myself, and to her in our imagined dialog, was that this challenge could be about her relatively than me. I wanted to verify her voice was clear.
It labored. After the challenge was revealed, I did an interview with Tate Modern, and many of the dialog was about Taj, not about me, not even about Zanjir. They hadn’t identified about her. That was one thing: wanting on the previous and seeding it into the current.
The battle we’re witnessing has been taking place for hundreds of years, and in my nation for many years – the final 4 many years have been brutal towards girls. But it hasn’t stopped them. The battle has develop into extra apparent, stronger, extra strategic. It grew to become a motion, particularly after Mahsa Jina Amini’s dying in 2022.
Through my imagery, I attempt to convey this silent protest, which is usually the loudest. These quiet moments of dialogue carry consideration to the battles and resilience of my individuals. Even now, photographers like Tahmineh Monzavi and Parastou Ahmadieh are punished – 74 lashes – due to singing. It hasn’t stopped them, and it will not. They will do it once more.
For me, it is about the best way to transcend their experiences and emotions, past what the media or social media desires to indicate, and in the direction of one thing unseen. That is what I’m interested by. I imagine within the energy of those unseen emotions, these imagined dialogues.
FH: There’s one thing stunning within the masking of the figures. Your work began as one thing intensely private, and it has remained so, notably via the method of modifying. But it has additionally develop into one thing that speaks to a collective narrative, a wider expertise of ladies and households in Iran immediately.
AM: Absolutely. My initiatives are at all times deeply private, however they’re additionally at all times related to wider social meanings and issues. It was a private narrative between me and Taj al-Saltaneh. And then it grew to become a collective narrative – the expertise of 1000’s, hundreds of thousands of individuals I hope to succeed in.
I hope to ask the viewers, the viewer, to create their very own actual dialog in response to this imagined one. How many conversations are you able to create? How many dialogues? That, I hope, is the influence of this challenge.
Today
I take into consideration issues
that I forgot to recollect
I remind myself
to recollect
If I’m afraid of the life
I’ve created in images
It is due to my desires
I dream
I bear in mind
With no household however reminiscence
With no land however traces
My land travels inside me
I stay prior to now
I’ve created a life
A lifetime of reminiscences.