By an Eye-Witness / Portfolio 01

Azadeh Akhlaghi

Is it possible that a moment of time becomes so tumultuous and critical that breaks the linearity of time, and lobs the dwellers of the moment over the past to another historical moment? Is it possible that we come upon a radical opening in the course of the history, a crack in which we see the spirits of the past, the people who fought and died tragically for the cause that we believe in, and walk with them along the streets of our contemporary cities? Is it viable that a human being, doomed to the present time, takes the spirits of his precursors out of the massive ruin of history, call them on to the present, and relished their precious support? How about the opposite way? Is this extraordinary moment, manage to detach from the triviality of our everyday life and travel back through history? A journey backward, not through memory or mind or analysis or reading or writing, but though our very flesh and blood, which seems profoundly attached to the moment? The point of departure of this project derives from the shock – a collective shock – of the present, rather than a historical preoccupation and is a meditation on those possibilities. Perhaps what I bring to the fore is nothing but utopic daydreaming, one of those candid optimistic moment that come around during abrupt social cracks and collective hopes. This is perhaps imagining simultaneity of us and the dead we admire in an essentially different time, the time that has not come yet.

Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Jahangir Khan Sur-e-Esrafil, Nasrollah Malek al Motekallemin, 24 June 1908”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 188 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Colonel Mohammad Taghi-khan Pesyan, 07 October 1921”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 167 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Mirzadeh Eshghi, 03 July 1924”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 209 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Mohammad Farrokhi Yazdi, 17 October 1939”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 157 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Taghi Arani, 04 February 1940”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 165 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Azar Shariat Razavi, Ahmad Ghandchi, Mostafa Bozorgnia, 07 December 1953”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 267 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Forough Farrokhzad, 13 February 1967”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 220 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Mohammad Mosaddegh, 05 March 1967”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 171 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Gholam Reza Takhti, 07 January 1968”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 184 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Samad Behrangi, 03 September 1968”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 174 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Marzieh Ahmadi Oskuie, 26 April 1974”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 318 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi , “Bijan Jazani, 18 April 1975”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 165 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi , “Hamid Ashraf, 29 June 1976”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 175 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Ali Shariati, 19 June 1977”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 168 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Mahmoud Taleghani, 10 September 1979”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 219 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Mehdi Bakeri, 14 February 1985”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 212 cm, 2012
Azadeh Akhlaghi, “Sohrab Shahid Sales, 01 July 1998”, from “By an Eye-Witness” series, digital print on photo paper, edition of 9 + AP, 110 x 247 cm, 2012