Words and People

The photographer took the picture two or three months after the victory of the 1979 Revolution. To be more precise, it must be May 1st (12th of Ordibehesht in the Iranian calendar) —the same day as International Workers' Day. A day and a year when people dreamed of realizing their rights. Although I don’t know what each of the people in the picture thought about these rights, or what they imagined about the way to achieve them, nor to what extent these ideas overlapped, or how much each person could tolerate the possible lack of overlap.

Anyway, let’s go into the picture, where unlike a typical political street demonstration, the people are not aligned; each one moves toward themselves or their own goal, and this lack of alignment perhaps reflects the divergence of their ideas. In the picture, nothing is complete. The people are headless and the words endless. The words cover the people, and the people wrap around the words. Bodies are just bodies and do not become individuals; words are just words and do not form sentences. The photographer, who is also headless and lying in the picture, seemingly not taking pictures, is perhaps a symbol of this confusion. Behind all this, in the foreground and background, even the trees and buildings have no definite role. Bodies, words, trees, and buildings fade away in the gray at the bottom of the picture.

I am left wondering what that one person at the corner, on top of the vehicle, is doing; what they are saying or seeing?