Blank Pages of an Iranian Photo Album

Newsha Tavakolian

East Wing

2 July – 10 September 2015

“The family photo album is the showcase for my generation. The yellowed albums and pictures of smiling children dressed up in their best clothes are testament to our hopes and dreams, but they end in blank pages and the moment when our parents stopped taking our pictures (…)

As a photographer I have always struggled with how to perceive my society, with all its complexities and misunderstandings. For this project, I have decided to continue producing the photo albums of my generation. To add the pictures that were never taken of the way that life is for them now, as adults. I followed people who, in a sense, define this generation. They are interchangeable, thus representing many. This photo album is theirs; it is my vision of life in Iran now, unromantic and confined. Those who feature on the pages are interchangeable, placed randomly in the natural situation of what is or could be their daily lives.”
— Newsha Tavakolian

A self-taught photographer, Newsha Tavakolian began working professionally in the Iranian press at women’s daily newspaper ‘Zan’ when she was just 16 years old. At 18, Tavakolian was the youngest photographer to cover the 1999 student uprising, which was a turning point for the country’s blossoming reformist movement and for Tavakolian personally as a photojournalist; a year later she joined New York based agency Polaris Images. In 2002 she started working internationally, covering the war in Iraq and has since covered regional conflicts, natural disasters and made social documentary stories. Her work is widely published internationally in important magazines and newspapers.

Newsha Tavakolian has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums such as; the Victoria & Albert, the British Museum (UK), LACMA and the Boston Museum of Fine Art (USA). In 2014 Tavakolian was chosen as the Fifth Laureate of the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award. The book, ‘Blank Pages of an Iranian Photo Album’ accompanies this exhibition and was published in 2015.