Domino(in collaboration with Ramyar)

Domino

The ideology and policies of Iranian rulers during the three decades after the Islamic Revolution has been so that the people of this country has been always exposed to crises, sanctions, and threats of war. The flames of the revolution had not yet been blown out when an eight-year war with Iraq started. The hope to reforms and improvement of lives and prosperity after the war had not been rekindled when September 11 launched and following that the term axis of evil was coined. Afterwards, the story of nuclear energy, the resistance of Iran against the West and the post-election protests of 2009-10 were the most critical issues. All these events have lead the country towards circumstances in which people were anxious about a possible disaster or war all the time.

This collection is a narrative of our past life experiences and the future that we expect inevitably. That is the image of the fears we had and still can be seen in our social life, which is full of threats and crises; a mixture of sufferings and pains that we fear to re-experience as before. In each photograph, a part of our memories and imaginations of war has been depicted. Once we were ready to die, once in escape, and once beside a corpse of war, we turned our fear into rage.

Life is not easy in the Middle East, as its history is overflowing with war and it seems to remain as such. Nowadays, the governments are collapsing one after another. “Domino” is a prediction of the last piece of a game, which has not been realized yet and people of Iran are concerned about the end of this game in their day-to-day life.

Ali&Ramyar