Iran TV series set in 1950s draws big audiences with echoes in politics today

With its depiction of Iran under late shah’s despotic rule comes Shahrzad, an independent online drama with parallels in current events

A scene from Shahrzad. The series has viewers glued to their screens in a country where independent online series are a new departure. Photograph: Amirhossein Shojaee/shahrzadseries.com. Courtesy the Guardian.

by Saeed Kamali Dehghan Iran correspondent, The Guardian

Footsteps resonate on cobblestones, snooker clubs are open, women and men go partying together, cabarets are full, the alcohol flows, chapeaux are fashionable, the national theatre is showing Othello and, in the small cinemas along Lalehzar – old Tehran’s Champs-Élysées, Casablanca is showing.

This is Iran 1950s-style, brought back to life in the online TV series Shahrzad, the most expensive production of its kind in the country. Once a week, when a new episode is released, the show has the whole nation glued to their screens.

Netflix may not have yet infiltrated Iranian households, but its style of gripping filmmaking has. Shahrzad is drawing huge audiences in a country where independent online series, produced privately, are becoming increasingly popular as people turn their backs on tightly controlled state television for online substitutes or illegal satellite channels.

Like most films made in Iran, Shahrzad has already been approved by the censors – every single scene, each dialogue and costume has been carefully examined to make sure it adheres to the norms. The result, however, is a series that treads a fine line, even even at times showing the generally unshowable, such as women singing.

Images from a colonial childhood in Iran

British filmmaker Miranda Pennell introduces The Host, her personal account of oil, empire and family

A snapshot of the family in Iran. Photograph: Miranda Pennell. Courtesy the BP archive, Pennell family photographs and the Guardian.

by Tehran Bureau, The Guardian

The film begins inside a box of Kodak Ektachrome slides. The box has my name written on it. Inside, the snow-capped peaks of the Zagros mountains rise up behind a big, glass-fronted house in north Tehran. Looking at this image I remember a pair of pale yellow flip-flops bobbing up and down on the surface of the kidney-shaped swimming pool. My father had jumped in to fish Azar out of the pool because she’d fallen in at the deep end, fully dressed, and couldn’t swim.

Or so the story went. Azar was the nanny who’d looked after me, and was married to Mohammad, the head servant. I don’t think I actually witnessed Azar’s rescue, and on reflection, I am not sure that I ever saw the yellow flip-flops floating on the water, either. This may be just one of those stories told within a family that gain solidity with each retelling, and whose imagery lives on in memory long after all of the protagonists and witnesses are gone.

I find no images of Tehran itself in the box, nor of any urban life beyond this cool, suburban idyl. But by now I am curious about the troubling story behind these records of a colonial encounter which I find myself bound up in.

The man behind Iran's most famous tower

Azadi Tower, Tehran. Courtesy Mazyar َAsadi

by Rozita Riazati, BBC World Service

For 45 years, Iran's most famous modern monument, the Azadi (Freedom) Tower in Tehran, has been the backdrop to every major news story coming out of the country.

A plaza for celebrations, anniversaries, military parades and a gathering point for mass demonstrations, the 50m (165ft) tall tower has overlooked some of Iran's most important political events.

The edifice was built in 1971, to represent a symbol of modernity and project the way forward for Iran.

Even at the time the project was finished, architect Hossein Amanat never expected that "it would become such an icon, so popular with the people of Iran".

Originally named the King's Memorial, or Shahyad, it was commissioned to mark 2,500 years of the Persian Empire, celebrating the richness of Persian history and culture.

Hossein Amanat was a rising star in Iran's architectural scene when, in 1966, he won a national competition to design the monument.

Iran in Photographs

Beautiful Photos of Everyday Life in 19th and 20th Century Iran

Girls Weaving a Carpet. Courtesy Smithsonian Institution.

by Ali Breland, NPR

Since 1979, tens of thousands of Iranians have lived in exile in the United States. The Iranian Revolution forced large numbers of the population out of the country, and many have never returned. As Persian New Year, referred to by Iranians as Nowruz, approaches, many look back on old photos and remember an Iran they used to know. The holiday happens annually on the spring equinox and symbolizes a rebirth in Persian culture. Iranians in the U.S. now experience new lifestyles and culture that make Nowruz's themes of rebirth more real than they had imagined.

The Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian are giving Iranian-Americans in exile access to a rich history that they left decades ago. The gallery is home to hundreds of photographs by Antoin Sevruguin, a late 19th and early 20th century Iranian photographer. It is one of the most prominent collections of Iranian works in North America. Some of the photos will also be on display during the Freer and Sackler's Nowruz celebration. The entire collection is also viewable online.

"[Nowruz] is something that I grew up with in Iran," said Massumeh Farhad, chief curator at the galleries and an Iranian-American. "I think [the event] is a wonderful way to celebrate the beginning of a new year. You realize how important it is to have something to look forward to and to celebrate the idea of renewal."

In addition to giving Iranian-Americans a space to connect with their past, the event also benefits the Freer and Sackler Galleries' research.

"During Nowruz, we display the images on a large screen and we frequently get people telling us they recognize people and places that help the museum with research," said Allison Peck, head of public affairs at the Freer and Sackler Galleries.

Tehran Bazaar

Untitled, 2009 (Rostam II Series), by Siamak Filizadeh. Courtesy of Aaran Gallery.

by Joobin Bekhrad, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs

In discourses revolving around Iran’s tumultuous history, particularly that of the last thousand years, a comparison has often been made between Iranian culture and the mythical phoenix. Following the decay and decline of the Sassanian Empire—heir to the legacy of the Achaemenids and Parthians, whose influence not only reached the far-flung corners of the then-known world politically, but culturally as well—Iran was plunged into a dark era that would radically alter the course of its culture, history, and identity for centuries to come. The arrival of the Umayyads and Abbasids saw not only the eradication of Zoroastrianism, the indigenous Iranian religion dominant at the time, but also the widespread suppression of the Persian language and Iranian culture, which culminated in what is now referred to as the dreaded “two centuries of silence.” And, just when the newly humbled Iranians—who had only a short while back given the Romans a run for their money—thought they had seen the worst, the Mongols, following the course of their Seljuk brethren who had recently swept through Iran and laid the foundations for modern-day Turkey, razed the land of the noble to the ground, laying once-proud Persia to waste.

Of many of the countless peoples and places Herodotus documented in his colossal Histories, only names and vestiges remain. Despite having been in the epicenter of a region continuously subject to invasion, bloodshed, intercultural tensions, and religious strife (to name a few malaises), Iranian culture has always managed, somehow or other, not only to survive, but to proudly flourish, despite various changes in its outward appearance and form. From the ashes of the remnants of the House of Sassan, and from the depths of the two centuries of silence emerged the voices of Rudaki, the first major poet to write in modern-day Persian (i.e., the Dari variant), and Ferdowsi, who, in a labor of love composed the triumphant Shahnameh, Iran’s national epic celebrating pre-Islamic Iranian mythology and lore. Later, though Iran found itself yet again under foreign occupation—this time by Turco-Mongol dynasties from the East—Iranian art and architecture flourished and adapted itself to its new surroundings. Iran later enjoyed a lavish renaissance at the hands of the first indigenous rulers of Iran since the Sassanians, the Safavids. Despite their religious zealotry and fervent promotion of Shi’ism (by sometimes questionable means), they ushered in a golden age of Iranian art and culture still looked upon with reverence and longing today by Iranians and non-Iranians alike.

Unedited History: Iran 1960-2014

Poster: © Aria Kasaei {StudioKargah}. Courtesy MAM.

From 16 May - 24 August 2014 the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presents UNEDITED HISTORY, Iran 1960-2014 at ARC, the museum's research and exhibition area. Comprising over 200 works for the most part never shown in France before, the exhibition brings a fresh eye to art and visual culture in Iran from the 1960s up to the present. Its survey of the contemporary history of the country is arranged in sequences: The years 1960-1970, the revolutionary era of 1979, the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), and the postwar period up until today.


Bringing together twenty artists from the years 1960-1970 and representatives of the new generation, the exhibition focuses on painting, photography and cinema, as well as key aspects of Iran's modern visual culture: posters and documentary material ranging from the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of the Arts to the revolutionary period and the Iran-Iraq war.

Whether already historic figures (Bahman Mohassess, Behdjat Sadr, Kaveh Golestan, Bahman Jalali) or members of the contemporary scene (Barbad Golshiri, Arash Hanaei and others), all the artists base their work on a critical approach to form and media. Down the generations, they have played their part in a reassessment of the way the political and social history of their country has been written. The exhibition and its accompanying book invite us to broaden our perception of Iran and its modernity.

Artists on show: 

Morteza Avini (1947-1993), Mazdak Ayari (né en 1976), Kazem Chalipa (né en 1957), Mitra Farahani (née en 1975), Chohreh Feyzdjou (1955-1996), Jassem Ghazbanpour (né en 1963), Kaveh Golestan (1950-2003), Barbad Golshiri (né en 1982), Arash Hanaei (né en 1978), Behzad Jaez (né en 1975), Bahman Jalali (1944-2010), Rana Javadi (née en 1953), Khosrow Khorshidi (né en 1932), Bahman Kiarostami (né en 1978), Parviz Kimiavi (né en 1939), Ardeshir Mohassess (1938-2008), Bahman Mohassess (1931-2010), Morteza Momayez (1935-2005), Tahmineh Monzavi (née en 1988), Mohsen Rastani (né 1958), Narmine Sadeg (née en 1955), Behdjat Sadr (1924-2009), Kamran Shirdel (né en 1939), Kourosh Shishegaran (né en 1944), Behzad Shishegaran (né en 1952), Esmail Shishegaran (né en 1946).

Archaeology of the Final Decade presents Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis and Kaveh Golestan - Shahr-e No

The Strange Fruits of Fascination

Exploring the mutual fascination between Iran and Europe through art in Switzerland

Still from Hamed Sahihi’s ‘Observer’. Courtesy REORIENT.

by Natasha Morris, REORIENT

Though the German word sehnsucht is often translated as ‘fascination’ in English, it also carries with it connotations of longing and desire. Between September 2013 and January 2014, the concept of sehnsucht was explored, particularly with respect to the longstanding relationship between Iran and Europe. Focusing on the threads of contact woven between the 1600s to the present day, a rich and thought-provoking dialogue of aesthetics, politics, and identity was presented, which featured some 200-odd works from both Persian and European classical artists, as well as some of Iran’s most important contemporary artists.

Nestled in a park below the Alpine mountains, Museum Rietberg is widely known as Switzerland’s sole museum dedicated to the showcasing of non-European art. For the exhibition, the building’s transparent façade was covered with confetti of green geometrical shapes that implied a sort of serendipitous Islamic minimalism, while the work chosen for the poster of the recent exhibition, Sehnsucht Persien – roughly translating to The Fascination of Persia – was one of a series of towering late 17^th century Safavid oil paintings depicting quixotic characters amongst ornate backgrounds. Although thought to have been decorated for the interiors of Isfahan’s wealthy elites, the subjects in the paintings were devoid of any concrete identity or attribution, thus presenting an immediate allure for the beholder. An older enigma in the series, that of a blonde, blue-eyed man in flowering Turco-Georgian robes stood out particularly luminescent beneath the dim lighting inside the museum.

The exhibition itself, housed deep within an underbelly extension of the building, presented an admixture of the grace and delicacy of classical Persian and European works with the beauty and brutality of ones by contemporary Iranian artists. The curation by Axel Langer and Susann Wintsch was sensitive in its display of a refreshing departure from the usual narrative of trade in an exhibition hinged on cross-cultural exchange. Speaking with Langer, he told me that the link he drew between his curated works became increasingly conceptual rather than formal, which resulted in comparisons between the pieces that were at times more subtle than straightforward. Langer and Wintsch didn’t shirk from past-present dialogues either, although the works by the contemporary artists in the exhibition seemed to be more influenced by modern-day Iran, their historical ties and connections with a Perso-European past being largely formulated through the curation. Also present there, sprinkled throughout the impressive and varied exhibition catalogue, were black and red caption boxes presenting a tripartite and trilingual dialogue between the works from Baroque Europe, Safavid Persia, and contemporary Iran.

Reflections of Persia

An Italian photographer’s lifelong love affair with the land and culture of Iran

Reflections of Persia celebrates the journey of a scholar, photographer, literary translator, and above all, an Iranologist, who has gone above and beyond the political borders of Iran

Riccardo’s Iran, discovered and rediscovered in verdant valleys, dense forests, and desert plains becomes a mirror in which the world and its distant lands appear before one’s eyes.  From the Iranian Encounters series (1972 – 2006). Courtesy REORIENT.

by Aria Fani, REORIENT

Imagine a teenager having recently immigrated to the United States spending the summer in his native Shiraz. The August of Shiraz, hot and dry, draws him inside the bookstores of Molla Sadra avenue. Intimately familiar with the poetry of Sohrab Sepehri, he has a ravenous appetite for commentaries on Sepehri’s oeuvre, which encompasses too many titles to note, even in a bibliography; and, with his new camera, one may even say this teenager has an eye for photography. He grabs a few books, goes to the cashier, and spots underneath the display case at the counter a copy of Ta Shaghayegh Hast (While Poppies Bloom) – an exquisite find!

With colours popping out of its cover, While Poppies Bloom is a coffee table book of 80 photographs of Persian landscapes published together with the poetry of Sohrab Sepehri in both Persian and English. It represents a collaborative effort between the translator, Karim Emami, and the photographer and Iranologist Riccardo Zipoli. In the book’s introduction, written with sincerity and style, Riccardo speaks of his love affair with Iran, its culture, and its people.

Upon his return to the United States, the teenager in question reached out to Riccardo; he admired how well his images of rural Iran captured the voice and sentiment of Sepehri’s poems. Their correspondence marked the beginning of a friendship, initially formed through phone conversations and emails, until the two eventually met several years later over coffee in Campo San Polo in Venice, Riccardo’s ‘second’ home.

Although their correspondences had primarily been of an intellectual nature, their first meeting held a casual, social pleasure as well. The young man – yours truly – immediately stepped into a different world through Riccardo’s eloquence in Persian, his knowledge of Iranian geography, and his ability to tune in to the nuances of Iranian society. With a style of speaking and humour unique to him, tactfully and humbly, Riccardo began to describe his first encounter with Iran in 1972. Having reached Iran via a road trip through former Yugoslavia and Turkey with his mentor, Gianroberto Scarcia, Riccardo’s one-month stay in the country commenced a lifelong love affair that brought together his passion for exploring the Iranian landscape and his area of expertise, Persian poetry.

Do You Remember?

Reflections on the Collective Memories of Iran’s Post-Revolution Generation

Still from Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Where is the Friend’s Home?’ (Khaneh-ye Doost Kojast?). Courtesy REORIENT.

by Pendar Nabipour, REORIENT

Every individual carries with themselves memories, which give shape and foundation to their identity, behaviour, and perspective; but what happens when memories and experiences are recognised not only by one person, but also by many? When instead of an individual, a group of people with a collective consciousness recall and recount the same memories they all have in common? And, during the process of recollection, what other phenomena occur, and – perhaps most importantly – why and how does such widespread collective recollection come about?

Not long after the 1979 Revolution and the demise of the Pahlavi regime and the Iranian monarchy, Iran was at the peak of post-Revolution chaos, immersed in an eight year-long war with Iraq (1980 – 1988). The new government set a very different tone for, and adopted a new strategy with respect to its internal and external policies, during a time when a new generation was growing up in a society that was learning to adopt itself to its surroundings. As a result of a bloody war, and the establishment of a new Islamic Republic, the lifestyle many Iranians were used to was radically altered.

In the meantime, the expansion of the population became a part of the national agenda, with rewards being given to families based on the assumption that more children would eventually translate to more soldiers in the future. As a result, a baby boom occurred, which occurred in tandem with sanctions imposed by the West, which wreaked havoc on the lives of ordinary Iranians and the economy. Everyday life was loaded with surprises, to say the least.

L-R: A woman producing clothes for soldiers; children carrying donations for the war effort; a popular poster of a young soldier; soldiers during the war. Courtesy REORIENT.

Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran

by Meghan Nuttall Sayres, The Huffington Post

My last post was entitled "Media Washed Middle East," in which I wrote about my experiences traveling and writing about the Middle East. Those sojourns abroad culminated in an anthology that was just published this spring by Nortia Press entitled Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran. It is a collection of essays, poetry, interviews and blog posts written by ordinary people who have found friendships, mentors and muses in Iran. The anthology aims to challenge stereotypes about Iran and its people currently perpetuated in the Western media. Below is the introduction to the book...

Prior to my first trip to Iran in March 2005, when I was invited to speak at the country's First International Children's Book Festival, I had looked for a book to help relieve doubts about my decision to go. At first, I found none. Then a friend gave me a copy of Alison Wearing's Honeymoon in Purdah. Wearing's account of her travels in Iran during the summer of 2000 helped me to deconstruct the myth that Iran is a haven of sequestered women and armed masked martyrs. Her book -- infused with humor -- showed me that I, too, would be welcomed there.

Love and Pomegranates: Artists and Wayfarers on Iran came about because my friends, colleagues and I have developed a profound appreciation of Iranian culture and an abundance of stories about the friendships we made and the generosity we received in Iran. On our journeys we found another Iran, one that lies in stark contrast to the ominous picture of their culture painted by the American and other Western mainstream media, which has repeatedly tainted our collective perspective on Iran. A recent study discovered that half of Americans view Iran as a threat and opinions of that country have worsened in recent years; yet, two thirds of us have never met an Iranian. Perhaps the study suggests that the media's focus on our nation's foreign policies and on the idea of national security prevents us from considering the richness of Persian history and culture, which reflects a long-held tradition of peace and hospitality.

Perhaps the bias against Iranians is bound up in a bias against Muslims. After the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 polls revealed that the perceived threat from Muslims living in the United States and abroad increased significantly. While many Iranians in the U.S. and Iran are Muslim, they are also secular, Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Bahai, or follow other spiritual paths. An Iranian acquaintance of mine living in Tehran attends her father's mosque and her mother's Catholic church. Dr. Carl Ernst, a professor of Islamic Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill estimates that there are at least 300,000 Christians in Iran today. Historically, in Sasanian Iran, Christianity was a prominent religion and home to a number of Eastern churches that were considered heretical by the Byzantines.

Can a text from ancient Persia break down mistrust between enemies?

The 2,600-year-old Cyrus Cylinder is embarking on a first US tour with a message of tolerance from Iran's past

The Cyrus Cylinder. Photograph: British Museum. Courtesy Guardian

by Ian Black, Guardian

Thirty-plus years of mutual suspicion, demonization and hostility separate the United States from Iran, so it would be naive to hope for any sudden change — on the nuclear front or on any of the other thorny issues that divide Washington from Tehran. But an innovative exercise in cultural diplomacy might, just, make a small dent in the wall of prejudice.

Hopes rest on a rugby-ball sized object whose permanent home is in a glass case in the magnificent Iran gallery of the British Museum. It was there that a modest send-off ceremony was held the other day for the Cyrus Cylinder, heading off on a US tour to give American audiences a glimpse of an ancient civilization whose heritage is too often masked by contemporary clamour and aggression.

The cylinder, one of the most famous objects to have survived from the world of antiquity, is a clay tablet inscribed with Akkadian Cuneiform script. It was made shortly after the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great of Persia captured Babylon in 539BC and records how he allowed deported peoples to return to their homelands. In the words of the Iran Heritage Foundation:

"It tells how the god of Babylon – the conquered land – has chosen Cyrus to improve the lives of the Babylonians, and it talks about Cyrus's efforts in repatriating displaced people and restoring temples across Mesopotamia, letting them worship the god of their choice, not the god of the conqueror. It tells the story of letting people living their lives even after their country was conquered, something that was not heard of at the time."

Art Beyond Borders: Edinburgh Iranian Festival 2013

The third Edinburgh Iranian Festival promises a re-examination of the culture, history and art of a much-misunderstood country

by  Bram E. Gieben, The Skinny

From 1 to 16 February, the third Edinburgh Iranian Festival comes to the capital to celebrate the history, culture, language and art of Iran. Often, the portrayal of Iran in the media focuses on the negative – Iran's policies on censorship and its political situation are the subjects most often addressed, but the rich cultural heritage of Iran, not to mention its thriving contemporary cultural life – both in Iran itself, and in the expatriate Iranian community – are often passed over.

The Edinburgh Iranian Festival seeks to redress this balance, and to expose the expat Iranian community in Scotland, and Scottish audiences, to a wide array of Iranian culture, history and art. Sara Kheradmand set up the first festival in 2008, after founding the Edinburgh University Persian Society, and the first season ran in 2009. “Doing something like this – which is about culture, about giving something back to both the Scottish and the Iranian community – is something we are all passionate about,” she says.

This year's festival is dedicatedv to the Persian poet Ferdowsi, who wrote Iran's 'national epic,' The Shahnameh. It celebrated its 1000th anniversary in 2010. “There is a long-standing tradition of people – usually men – acting out the stories from The Shahnameh. People will gather around to listen,” says Kheradmand. Xanthe Gresham will be performing an English-language version of some tales from the epic: “We've never seen anyone doing this before,” says Kheradmand. “She has taken the translations and applied her own twists.” There is also a lecture from Professor Ali Ansari about the relationship between The Shahnameh and modern Iran.

While talking about life and culture in modern Iran, both Kheradmand and her colleagues are keen to dispel some myths. Haleh Jamali, the curator of the festival's visual arts strand and a featured artist, says: “You rarely see programmes on Iran's culture or history, so we would like to focus on that.” The film strand engages directly with life in present-day Iran, and the hardships that are entailed: “Modest Reception touches upon life in villages; Orange Suits is about street-sweepers,” says Kheradmand. The films are intimate: “You get to know their lives.” The lecture programme explores contemporary life in Iran from different perspectives: “We have a lecture about tribal life in Iran with Professor Borbor – a completely different lifestyle than you would encounter in Tehran,” she says. “The photographer James McGachie's lecture is about his travels in Iran – he presents an outsider's perspective.”

Pearls of Persian art

Late collector’s Islamic collection spans centuries and genres
 

“There’s a real breadth here,” said the exhibition’s curator, Mary McWilliams, who holds the namesake chair as Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art. The collection contributes “a scope and depth that we didn’t have before.” Photos by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer, Courtesy Harvard Gazette.

by Katie Koch, Harvard Staff Writer

Among the roughly 170 pieces of Islamic art that Norma Jean Calderwood and her husband left to Harvard, one in particular hints at the late collector’s philosophy: an earthenware bowl bearing, in precise calligraphy, the epigram “Greed is a sign of poverty.”

Calderwood was a patron of the arts and a renowned Boston philanthropist, and her legacy of generosity was as rich as her varied collection of Persian and Iranian objects, which spanned more than a millennium (from the ninth through the 19th century) and a variety of genres, from glazed ceramics to illustrated manuscripts to lacquered pen cases.

Now that little-seen collection, amassed by Calderwood over 30 years and donated by her and her husband, Stanford, to Harvard in 2002, will be put on public display.

“In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art,” which opens Thursday atthe Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, is both a celebration of Calderwood’s championship of once-obscure work and a showcase of the vibrancy of Iranian culture over time.

“There’s a real breadth here,” said the exhibition’s curator, Mary McWilliams, who holds the namesake chair as Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art. The collection contributes “a scope and depth that we didn’t have before.”

Among the fruits of Calderwood’s labors are folios from illustrated manuscripts of famed medieval Persian poems, such as the “Shahnama” (“Book of Kings”) and the “Khamsa” (“Quintet”); elegant ceramic bowls bearing both Islamic teachings and lines of Persian poetry; and single-page compositions such as “Young Dervish” by Riza Abbasi, the most influential artist of 17th-century Iran.

Irandokht: Daughters of Iran

How an accidental find prompted an art project to document a forgotten era before the Iranian revolution

Courtesy of the Tehran Bureau, Guardian, Link to the pictures

by Sourena Parham for the Tehran Bureau, Guardian

In the autumn of 2005, Najaf Shokri was on his way to work when he made an intriguing discovery in a rubbish bin near his house in downtown Tehran. The bin, outside a branch of the National Civil Registrations Organisation, was filled with old national identification documents, all issued in 1942 and long expired.

"It was like discovering a mass grave," says Shokri. "They could have gone away and faded into history with no remaining trace."

He decided to create an art project out of his find, a collection of ID photographs that documents a generation. Shokri called the project Irandokht - "daughter of Iran" - after he noticed so many women by that name among the documents. It used to be a common first name in Iran.

Shokri's presentation focuses entirely on the photographs, revealing no names or personal information. The original meaning-making process is reversed, turned on its head as it were. The ID portraits no longer refer to specific individuals but to what we now call "meta-data": the postures in front of the camera, the hairdos, the makeup, the outfits, and even the photographic style of the time. All this meta-data evokes the era between the second world war and the Iranian revolution, an era that already seems very distant.

Before their replacement with more modern ID cards, Iranian identification documents consisted of four-page birth certificates issued without photographs. A holder was required to add a photograph to the document before using it for various legal purposes such as marriage, the national university entrance examination (known as the concours), or voting. Though the documents Shokri found were issued in 1942, the images in Irandokht are largely drawn from the period between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, when most of the women pictured added their photographs to their IDs.

Restoring Iran’s Heritage of Magnificent Homes in an Age of High Rises

The largest restored palace in Kashan has several courtyards and is a tourist attraction. Photo by Newsha Tavakolian, courtesy of  The New York Times.

by Thomas Erdbrink, NYTimes

A petite woman in gray boots and a checkered scarf, Shanaz Nader had spent much of her adult life abroad, with long stretches in Tokyo, London and New York. But here she was braving a cold wind in this desert city three hours south of Tehran, making her way through a maze of high mud-brick walls.

Black-clad women waited at a small bakery as the rattling noise of a motorcycle in the distance echoed through the alleys. Finally, Mrs. Nader, an interior designer in Tehran, reached her destination: a large, two-panel wood door that opened up to her fully renovated weekend home, a majestic old Iranian house with four bedrooms, colored-glass windows, a separate office, two garden areas and a large rectangular marble fountain. 

After boiling tea, Mrs. Nader, 68, sighed and sat down under an arched passageway. The sun reflected in the fountain, as the wind blew in faint sounds of the midday call to prayer. 

“Whenever I dreamed of Iran while being in some faraway place, I dreamed of owning such a house,” she said. 

For thousands of years, houses with secluded gardens and courtyards have been a cornerstone of Iranian architecture, which strongly influenced structures like the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal. Similar dwellings are described in literature from Achaemenid times, around 700 B.C., and their old Persian name is the root for the word “paradise.”

On Iranians, Drinking Wine, and Cultural Stereotyping

by Touraj Daryaee, Tehran Bureau

Foreign fantasies of excess versus a tradition of moderation.


From archaeological excavations that suggest northwest Iran was one of the earliest places where wine was produced -- more than 6,000 years ago -- to the tale of medieval French knights bringing grapes from the city of Shiraz, where the great Persian poet Hafez lived and wrote about his love of drink, there are many historical associations between wine and the land of Iran. In more recent times, Chateau Sardasht is still remembered by those who lived in Iran before the 1979 Revolution. Nowadays, visitors to Napa Valley can view the Persopolitan-looking Darioush Winery, one of California's leading vintners.

But there are other, more fanciful observations that inform the Western notion that Iranian culture was veritably drowning itself in wine in antiquity. Athenaeus, a Greek author who wrote about all things related to food, mentions that the Achaemenid king Darius the Great had the following inscription on his tomb: "I was able to drink a great deal of wine and to bear it well." Such an inscription is nowhere to be found. A similar picture is painted of Xerxes the Great in the biblical Book of Esther (1:10), where we read that the "heart of the king was merry with wine." Some commentators have suggested that the Achaemenid ruler was drunk when he ordered the beautiful young girls brought before him, so he could choose a new queen.

The fifth century BCE historian Herodotus claimed not only that the Persians were very fond of wine, but that they routinely made important decisions while drunk on it. According to Herodotus, the day after such a drunken deliberation, the Persians would reconsider their decision and if they still approved, adopt it. This is, to put it mildly, a highly unlikely image of a group of people who were able to carve out one of the largest empires in antiquity and sustain it for two centuries. Are we to think that they just got lucky over and over again when they were drunk out of their minds? This is certainly the view that the Greeks promoted and Iranian irrationality remains a topos in Western culture. A striking recent example comes in the 2009 movie by Bill Maher, Religulous, in which as soon as Iranians are mentioned, there is a scene of a party and people drinking alcohol out of the bottle in a frenzy.