By Daniel Nelson

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Image by reflecta

By Daniel Nelson

There are few smiling faces in Burnt Generation, Contemporary Iranian Photography at London’s Somerset House, but that’s probably partly because it’s a formal exhibition in an art gallery setting.

 

The title also offers an explanation. The nine photographers take their jobs seriously and they focus on a squeezed generation in a paradoxical society. It was never going to be a load of laughs.

Newsha Tavakolian, for example, “strives to bring to life the story of a nation of middle-class youths who battle with themselves every day. Her subjects struggle with isolated conformist society, lack of hope for the future and their own individual stories.”

They look pensive.

Ali and Ramyar’s photos seem pregnant with meaning, like Victorian paintings with a moral point. Gohar Dashti composes staged haikus in a barren landscape. Babak Kazemi believes “many of the social and political problems in Iran stem from oil and its production” – the resource course.

Most bizarre of all is Azadeh Akhlaghi’s extraordinary re-staging of landmark death scenes from recent Iranian history. Turning the pages of the book in which they are presented feels like voyeurism, but exerts a terrible fascination. They are mini historic tableaux.

Shadi Ghadirian (“I am a woman and I live in Iran. I am a photographer and this is the only thing I know how to do”) decorates military objects with a red silk ribbon. “Nil, Nil” shows everyday objects in intimate co-existence with objects of war. The eight-year with Iraq casts a shadow: hardly surprising, given that it was one of the longest (eight years) and most deadly (perhaps a million fatalities) since the Second World. And let’s not forget that the West supported Iraq.

Other aspects of life get a look in, but even the night-time illuminations seem subdued.

This isn’t the whole of Iranian life, but it’s a really interesting slice of it. Well worth a visit. And despite the lack of smiles – which certainly is not a reflection of Iranian life – the exhibition shows that creativity and skill is as vibrant in Iranian photography as in its cinema.

 

·         Burnt Generation, Contemporary Iranian Photography, free, is at Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA, until 1 June. Info: 7845 4600/ info@soimersethouse.org.uk

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