X
The rise and fall of Persian drill
Few musical movements in recent decades have captured the raw tension of urban life with the immediacy and urgency of U.K. drill. Emerging in the early 2010s from the council estates of South London—particularly Brixton and Peckham—it emerged as a raw, uncompromising voice for a generation grappling with the harsh realities of life on the…
Introducing Persian Psychedelia, Reborn: Dastgâmachine
In a city as multicultural and musically diverse as Toronto, it’s not uncommon to stumble across new artists and groups who are actively reshaping the current music landscape as we know it today. Dastgâmachine is no exception to this. This Toronto-based trio has created its own niche of psychedelia by combining Persian classical music with…
Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh: the sound beneath the story
You’ve heard him in Gheysar, Dash Akol, Reza Motori The music hits before the story does. It curls around your ear like a whisper before the first punch is thrown, the first tear falls, the first cigarette lights. In an interview, he tells the story of where it all began. He was ten, buying single film…

Nightmares Unleashed: Mehrad Mosaferi’s Journey Through the Subconscious

Today, the identity of human being is defined by a set of external characteristics such as culture, religion, language and skin color, while there is no place in society to express the internal side which is buried deep within subconsious. Mehrad Mosaferi, the photographer based in Bandar Abbas, shoot his latest photo series based on these buried emotions. As he started to explore his inner world during the moments of crisis in a hard period of his life, he started a journey to discover the roots of these emotions. This Serie called Invasion, started with a nightmare he once had. That nightmare and the emotions that it provoked, was so confusing and dreadful that Mehrdad decided to visualize it through photography.

While making the storyboard of this series, Mehrdad started to find the root causes of his nightmare and this process made him review his whole life once again. This reminiscence constantly raised his questions about his inner self. In his words:

“It was as if I pulled the thread that came out of a shirt so much that I completely destroyed it, and I was left with only a coil that I wanted to use to make a new dress for myself when I got the answer to my questions.”

In the process of making this series, Mehrdad faced many challenges such as finding locations, actors and costumes. Since this collection talks about feelings that are relative and timeless, by choosing simple faces and clothes, he tried to use all the elements in the photo to serve the concept of the collection.

By making the photos black and white, the scene became more similar to a nightmare, and the horrible situation that was supposed to be depicted in this collection was more meaningful in a space without color. By taking the eye-catching elements of the photos, he made the scene serve the concept of invasion and illusion.

This invasion, which is wrapped around our hands and feet like a rope, limits our life and choices. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in this rope that we don’t see it and think that life is so limited.

According to Mehrdad: “In my view, there’s a point in everyone’s life when they take control of their world, becoming the catalyst for beginnings and destructions. As Martin Heidegger once said:

“The greatest power a person has is their power of choice.”

Previous slide
Next slide

Photography Mehrdad Mosaferi

Categories: Art
Tags: Photography
Kimia Akhtari: