FLASH BACK

After islamic revolution in 1979, everything changed in Iran. These changes caused drastic transformations in both pre- and post-revolution generations. War, theocracy, forceful changes in political discourse, isolation from the world community, drastic currency drop, economic dependency on oil, extreme class discrimination and many other factors resulted in deep differences between pre- and post-revolution generation.

The social atmosphere of Iran right before the revolution, with its western standards in personal freedom, converted to a religious, stifling atmosphere with Hijab being its utmost symbolic manifestation. Early after the revolution, the country entered a long period of attrition war with Iraq, whose catastrophic impacts are still existing in the society. It is believed that it takes a war or a revolution for a generation to be destroyed and disappeared, Iran unfortunately experienced both almost simultaneously.

According to statistics, more than 70% of Iranians aged below 45, meaning that the majority of the population consists of young people who spent most of their lives in the post-revolution and post-war Iran. I was always interested in bringing the spirit of this generation into my photos. I believe that in order to understand and depict the influence of the society on individuals, the most direct and reliable way is to look at the faces of its members. Through faces, one can read the habits of a society, the crises it has experienced, its past and perhaps its future. Faces are reflectors of hopes, dreams, loves, emotions, dispiritedness and … . In a country like Iran with such a fresh and bold memory of war, revolution and radical social changes, the young generation is struggling for a long time with social problems like addiction, prostitution, unemployment, infidelity, disbelief, pessimism, regret, desperation, migration tendency and many other problems. The signs of these problems are obvious in every corner of the country, regardless of the class and occupation.

Confronting people with such a wide spectrum of social and personal problems in every day life, persuaded me to have a journey into their worlds, through their faces, with the hope of revealing the impact of the society on their personal attitudes.

In order to reach this goal, I asked the models I photographed to think about an event, a big moment that had changed their lives; a singular point! This event could be a good or a bad one. They were chosen to be below 45 years old. I asked them to come to the studio with normal cloths, without any specific makeup. I gave them time to settle down, relax and concentrate on themselves while setting up my equipments. Then, without distracting them from their thoughts, I started to shoot in absolute silence.

The result was unbelievable to me myself. The models usually had a common level of sadness. They used to go into a deep sad mood. When I later asked them the reason, they were all telling me strange stories about their failures and losses.