LIGHT IN MY POCKET

These works were made in the first months after arriving in exile from Iran to Soisy-sur-École, a small village in France. Far from Iran, I turn to the darkroom each day, each photograph has become a light kept close to me, a world I carry in my pocket.

I left my home in Iran in June, during the bombings, taking with me the shock, fear, and fracture of a life interrupted by war. I left my country and everything I knew to settle in a small village in France. There, I found safety, but also another kind of burden: the heavy awareness of being far away, the brutal distance that separated me from my home, my language, my people. This work began here, in the calm that followed, shaped by displacement and an incessant need to process what cannot be said. I packed all my belongings in eight hours before our trip to France. I didn't have a minute to think. I packed my cameras, my film, my developing equipment. Half of my luggage consisted of my photography equipment and my prints.
While living in Soisy-sur-École, a small village south of Paris that was once home to Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, I found myself surrounded by echoes of the artists and their strange monument, the Cyclops, hidden in the forest. Far from home and my language, I began to listen through my camera.
It is a place full of silence and memory.
Far from home and language, I began to listen through my camera. In the quiet of my darkroom, I didn’t draw on the photographs—I let the chemicals and light do the speaking. Each reaction left its own trace, sometimes tender, sometimes violent. Shapes and figures appeared unexpectedly, like visitors emerging from the shadows. They became my companions, born from the same solitude that made me seek them.
I often think of László Moholy-Nagy’s words: “The enemy of photography is the convention… the salvation of photography comes from the experiment.” That sentence has followed me for years. In these works, I tried to let go of control, to let chance guide me—to let light have its own will.
In Light In My Pocket the stones of the small village of Soisy seem to breathe, trees look back, and the light itself becomes alive. These images are fragments of my time here—moments of connection in a foreign place. Alone in this new landscape, I found communion through process.
Each photograph became a small act of faith, a light kept close, a world carried in my pocket. Horizons have become my anchor in the world, my way of understanding the sky and the earth, light and darkness. In this project, I take the horizon as my starting point, as the basis from which I understand and see the world around me.
In these works, I have tried to let go, to let chance guide me, to let the light follow its own will.

In Light in My Pocket, the stones of Fontainebleau breathe, the trees look back, and the light itself comes to life. The line separating the earth from the sky becomes a recurring image. I am here, in France, in a country that is no different from my own. It is this repetitive similarity, this familiarity, that I want to reproduce in my work.
Each image, although taken in France, is imbued with the tension of war, the rupture of departure, and the intensity of confrontation with a world both inside and outside that has been forever transformed. These photographs are fragments of my stay here, moments of fragile connection in a foreign place. Alone in this new landscape, I found communion through the process. Each photograph has become a small act of faith, a light kept close to me, a world I carry in my pocket.