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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.”

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Photography Mehrdad Mosaferi

Categories: Art
Tags: Photography
Kimia Akhtari: