Bāygān: House of Photographs and Words
Photo
Seifollah Samadian
Untitled
Early 1370s

Text

Sara Yektapour

Without a clear reason
An object that would normally be in the interior is now lying in the sunlight on barren. Based on the blue line at the top of the image, I assume it is near the sea. Who knows? Perhaps this land is surrounded by a blue fence. It is strange and questionable, and the strangeness and doubt don't end here in the picture. If the mirror had not cut off a piece of the photographer’s body and reflected it back, I would have thought it was just an empty wooden frame. But this reflection has pierced through to the scene in front, distinguishing what is happening behind the camera. The photographer shows only the intersection of their legs with part of their shadow, a vague fragment of their body in a picture that, willingly or unwillingly, carries the burden of introducing them—through the mirror, whose reason for being in that ambiguous land is unclear. This series of choices or aimless, suspended events, cast in the form of a self-portrait, is a fragmented narrative that, before it leads to understanding, is cut off. And it is these doubts that make me hold on to this self-portrait, without truly know the identity of the photographer.