In common usage, a house is simply the space that belongs to a family, while a home carries something more, a place of safety, rest, and daily life. In traditional Iranian culture, people often use the term “four walls” to mean the same thing. Certain elements and habits of Iranian domestic life live most fully in homes shaped by tradition, which is why these photographs were taken at my grandparents’ house rather than my own.
Once the project was finished, I invited my family members, the people pictured in the photographs, to take part in presenting the work. I asked them to look at the images and talk about them, and recorded their voices as they did. I later merged these recordings into a single audio track and placed a pair of headphones beside the photographs on the wall, so viewers could listen while looking at the collection. The intention was to slow people down, encouraging them to stay longer in front of the images and to form their own connections between what they heard and what they saw.
(taken by Canon 700D – 2021)
