Presence and Absence

This ongoing body of work brings photographs made in Iran and the United States into dialogue, forming visual bridges that reflect what is changing, what is lost, and what remains across distance and time.

This ongoing body of work, titled Presence and Absence, brings photographs made in Iran and the United States into dialogue, forming visual bridges that reflect what is changing, what is lost, and what remains across distance and time.

A decade after immigrating to the U.S., I returned to Iran for the third time and witnessed significant societal shifts, which prompted me to turn my camera toward my loved ones and the place where I grew up. Through intimate portraits and quiet landscapes, the photographs explore how absence and continuity coexist—how personal and cultural histories persist, erode, or transform. Together, images from both places linger in the space between here and there, holding what endures alongside what can no longer be recovered.