Paragrana | 2019
Iran: Generation Post-Revolution
Abstract
In 2009, the Green Movement in Iran arose as a civil protest against the controversial presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Only a year later, the Arab Spring started spreading from North Africa to the Levant, whereas the protests seemed to have left out Iran. However, the enduring ‘quietness’ on the streets and from activists was not representative of the actual political mood of various segments of Iran’s society. Particularly, the Iranian urban middle class and its youth have been active in creating and moving into spaces confined by partying, dancing, or music – all of them hidden away from the much surveilled and controlled public sphere. Hence, locations such as garages or other private spaces can be turned into spaces of self-determination, identity development, or of alternative publicness. With the aim of exploring the phenomenon of emerging spaces such as underground spaces in Iran, this presentation addresses the photojournalistic project Iran: Generation Post-Revolution by Kaveh Rostamkhani. In a collaborative lecture, the anthropologist Cathrine Bublatzky and the documentary photographer will examine the photo-essay in relation to the concept of “spaces”. This should, firstly, help to achieve a joint conversation, instead of a classical talk that situates the photographs, their formation processes and the socio-political situation in Iran at its centre. Secondly, the exchange is meant to engage with overlapping or contradictory approaches to photography from the perspective of the practitioner and the anthropologist, and the question of how photography may establish spaces of civil imagination that are otherwise not visible. Such spaces seem to be ‘liberated’ from general representations of public spaces in Iran, and as they are, for example, represented in Hollywood movies or mass media. In this sense they seem to be located ‘in-between’ those spaces that are occupied by mainstream visual narratives. This format combines a practice-based approach in documentary photography with a theoretical and analytical discussion which enables a contextualisation and critical reflection on cultural entanglements of visibility, resistance, and practices of civil imagination in Iran. With a particular focus on the younger generations of the urban middle class in Iran, with whom the photographer engaged in this project, the documentary series offers insights into daily life spaces and the room they provide for civil disobedience and individual expression.