Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
You have photographed Iran and Iranian people for more than a decade whilst working on research projects about historical photo archives in Iran. In the meantime, having settled in England, you haven’t been able to go back to your home country because of political pressure. What does a project like Zanjir coming out here in West mean for you?
With photography, you are retracing the past but in a way you are also creating new traces for the ones who are coming after you. For me, the message of this show was that mask could be any of us. And one day we will be the mask on somebody’s face. So it’s about past and present and the way they marry each other, and meet each other, and how we can live in the past, the present and the future at the same time, as humans, because of those universal feelings that we share. And it doesn’t matter if your family is Persian, Spanish or British. It’s about understanding the nature of self, and finding your roots, I guess. That is the beauty and the magical aspect of art, especially photography because it can freeze it.
ArrayPhotograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
Where does the archival material you use come from?
It’s from the King Naser al-Din Shah’s personal collection; he took them himself inside his palace. This is the king we see on these photographs, in his very first self-portraits, with his numerous wives. On two of them, we them in the main mirror in the hall of the palace. I have now worked with archival material for years, as a researcher and as an artist, and I’ve always been captured by the power of archival material, they have so many stories and the power of multiple interpretations, like poetry.
I’ve always been captured by the power of archival material, they have so many stories and the power of multiple interpretations, like poetry.
But it was also a big challenge for me, especially working with the masks of old Iranian pictures on contemporary faces. I’m often asked about it but I don’t use the masks to hide and cover; I don’t conceal anything. I want to keep it open, to let the audience decide who could be under this mask; it could be my mother, it could be you…
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
You thought of Zanjir as a ‘photographic conversation across centuries, continents and beyond life and death’. You’ve selected them in order to mirror your own story. The king received his first camera from the Queen of the United Kingdom, Victoria, so in a way I wondered if there was not already a first parallel between your destiny and the one of his daughter, Taj el-Saltaneh, between Iran and England?
Absolutely. The king was photographed for the first time at 13 years old and became king at only 15, but was soon passionate about photography and painting. He started photographing his family because photographers were not allowed in the palace. What interested me in the archives I found was his close relationship with his favourite daughter, Taj, and the memories she wrote. For instance, once she mentioned that after his passing, she started to go to bed with a portrait of her father and cry, in order to reconnect with him.
ArrayI don’t conceal anything. I want to keep it open, to let the audience decide who could be under this mask; it could be my mother, it could be you…
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
That’s how I feel with my family photographs: although my family members aren’t here with me, they are here for me on and through the images. For instance, in this gallery now, I feel their presence through the images. That’s how this connection between me and the princess was found. I used photography as a connection, a bridge, of what has passed and what we have lost.
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian, Arnolfini Gallery, Credit: Lawrence Bury/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian, Arnolfini Gallery, Credit: Lawrence Bury/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian, Arnolfini Gallery, Credit: Lawrence Bury/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian, Arnolfini Gallery, Credit: Lawrence Bury/ICVL Studio
Photograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian, Arnolfini Gallery, Credit: Lawrence Bury/ICVL Studio
Many of the photographs exhibited here represent your mother and father, firstly visible then covered. Others are photos of your father’s tattoos, something that was not accepted in Iran. Did you try to link a personal story to a wider cultural history?
I started editing these images in 2018, years after photographing them, so I was looking at these lovely people as a frame of the past. So for me it doesn’t matter if they were a mask or not as they are now in the past. And it doesn’t matter if the moment was a few days ago, years ago or even 200 years ago.
It doesn’t matter if the moment was a few days ago, years ago or even 200 years ago.
What I know is that parts of us stay there with these memories and we constantly try to pull ourselves out of the past in order to survive and carrying on living. That’s the feeling this exhibition represents, whether you’re from Iran or not. But also on the photographs, I feel the dead are alive again, like for Taj. I feel very honoured to have been able to create this connection with her, an early feminist, and brilliant memoirist.
ArrayPhotograph by Amak Mahmoodian in ‘Zanjir’ © Amak Mahmoodian/RRB Photobooks/ICVL Studio
It is very rare to see photographers thus interacting with photographs taken by others, and it enables us to feel a lot of your emotions, would you say it’s a woman’s approach?
Yes, it is a female thing in a way, something very humane, to refuse to create any distance with others, to refuse that distance, and foster a connection instead.
ZANJIR – by AMAK MAHMOODIAN is at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, 18 Jan – 22 March
Her book is available to purchase here.
