Hasan Ghafari
Tehran to Yasuj, North view of Dena Mountaintops (Zagros Mountains)
2011
Text
Sara YektapourThirst to See
The first time I saw this picture I wanted to understand where I was. The
airplane cabin crosses my mind at first but doubt quickly follows. As always.
Maybe because the airplane cabin has always been something out of reach. Maybe
because I have never seen that place so dark and ambiguous before. My next
question is about the triangle on the left side of the photograph—I won’t waste
words describing my speculations because the reflection of the wristwatch soon
convinces me of the presence of a hand that suddenly entered the frame and
holds me inside. I try to follow that unpredictable hand. Signs of people
inside the cabin. I try to understand what words that hand might have wanted to
accompany. I spend some time observing the shape of that hand and thinking
about its sudden intrusion.
Still, out of fear of facing the outside view, I retreat to the darkness
within. I open my cocoon of hands. I try to decipher the details of that red
spot of light below and the protruding shapes above but most of all I focus on
that still with half-lit line that divides the view in two.
It’s useless.
The mountain—with all its clarity and grandeur—is right there, right in front
of me. The very part with which the viewing of the photograph begins and
inevitably ends, and now, framed by the absolute darkness above and below, it
extends so much that it surrounds me. How close do we want to get? In this
mountain and vast blue, what are we searching for?
I return again to the only part that disrupts this order and deathly
silence: that uncertain, living hand.