Monologues of a Citizen

A haze of accumulated images in memory has settled over the photographer’s eye—like a character from a James Joyce novel, murmuring a tangled thread of words. More than the image itself, it is the photographer’s position within the city that matters to me: a citizen who seems not to be searching for anything in particular, not aiming to establish a specific connection between us and the surfaces of his images—not even truly seeing, perhaps. He seems mesmerized by an inflatable slide, its faint layer from elsewhere gently veiling his eyes. Through this superimposition of two images, the photographer seems to show us two individuals with two ways of seeing: the first captures the stillness of the slide—calm and contemplative; the second, with a troubled and scattered mind, blurs the iconic gate of the University of Tehran into a foggy haze. The photographer wanders the city, mentally assembling dissonant fragments from various places, and finally, in his own laboratory, overlays these visions to construct a new form of the city—one born of inner monologue and layered perception.