Her Grief Spoke Farsi

When my friend of Iranian origin lost a loved one, she couldn’t bid farewell in Teheran due to political situation. I witnessed the grief in exile. Mother, Anahita, and daughter, Giti, too young to understand the situation, yet source of consolation.

A few years ago, after a wave of protests and repression in Iran, my friend Anahita received the news that a close relative had died in Tehran. She couldn’t return home to grieve or bid farewell properly, the political situation made it impossible. I witnessed her grief unfold in silence, inside a suburban Warsaw home, where her young daughter couldn’t understand why her mother was crying. And yet, it was Giti who became a quiet source of consolation and strength.

These photographs are not portraits of mourning in the traditional sense. They explore the space between personal loss and political reality, between exile and belonging, emotion and distance. Through Anahita’s story, I reflect on the feminine experience of political conflict: how global events echo in domestic spaces, how sorrow becomes shared through gesture and proximity, and how motherhood can become a source of resistance.