They all stare back at me – I feel – with a degree of shame or regret... No one knows exactly what they are thinking. Some wear a smile of triumph perhaps knowing that their protest has been fruitful. Others are stunned in a moment of realization that they’ve been caught making a grave mistake. Even the children or teenagers look concerned. Ultimately, fifty-nine, women, and children are singled ...

Subjects in Iranian documentaries often speak to the director through the camera with concerns about whether their footage will be broadcast or censored. Perhaps such concerns have ceased to exist with the coming of social media through which subjects can record and broadcast themselves. However, before this, non-actors would often directly question the director. For example, in Through the Olive ...

The decision to use photographs of the Islamic Revolution was for the purpose of answering these questions within the context of the most crucial event in the contemporary history of Modern Iran. On the other hand, I also wanted to find individuals more concerned with something more important than the Revolution and the protests around them; I wanted to find people who were unsure whether they ...

Eyes Dazzle as they Search for the Truth was created during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Like many other businesses during the pandemic, Ag Galerie, where I worked, closed its doors to the public and began working on its collection of photography archives. Large numbers of photographs and negatives were coming in every week, and part of my job was to sort and scan those. A single 15 by 10 cm print ...

In the heart of Munich’s cultural scene, the prestigious Haus der Kunst has once again set the stage for the vibrant and dynamic artist book scene with its fourth edition of Super BOOKS. On November 3rd and 4th, the event brought together over 50 exhibitors from Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Austria, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and South Korea, being a recurring platform for the display of ...

How could the sound of a 35mm camera shutter attract the attention of a protestor in a crowd? As if the photographer used a megaphone to say, “One, Two, Three, Cheese...“ and some participants gazed out of the atmosphere to stare at the camera. I want to find my suspects like a detective among the revolutionaries of Iran in 1978-1979. The Iranian revolution stands as a paramount milestone in the ...

For several years I have been trying to answer others why I don’t migrate. In the beginning, I had countless answers but now I have nothing left to say in response except a hidden cry within a smile. The concepts of loving the homeland, dependence on the soil, and staying to build and develop the motherland have become so abstract that they are less likely to be the starting point for ...

The day after my wedding, when I woke up in the morning my husband had left me a note that he has to leave on an unexpected duty call and he did not dare to wake me up to say goodbye. The house felt empty, and loneliness was shading all over the place. I had to take off my white dress and step into the very first day of my new life. The only thing that could be found in this house was my ...

Hair is the last organ of the human body to decay. Still, the most impressive image I have ever seen is the piles of hair from the Auschwitz victims in the Polish Museum; hair becomes the embodiment of the souls that are still alive in the strands. From myth to literature, from popular culture and fairy tales to social punishments, the role of hair is evident, and among all these, the connection ...

Concealment of the human body has always been a significant consideration from the dawn of civilization up to the rise of technology. The objectivity of such issues becomes problematic when it comes to women in every region. The covering and the clothing of a female body indicate the cultural origins, social caste, and the political and religious atmosphere surrounding that woman. In the case of ...

On November 18th we hosted a “Der Greif X MPB: Behind the Image” Instagram Live with artist Abhijit Deb. He has been selected for our Guest Room "(make) belief" curated by Daniel Boetker-Smith & Tanvi Mishra. He gave us an in-depth look into his ongoing project "An Odyssey," offering a fresh perspective on India's North Eastern Region through folklore. This format is brought to you in ...

Vitruvius, the Roman architect, used the word Street for the first time and by describing its sceneries, divided urban sites into three categories: Tragic, Comic, and Satiric. In Tehran’s continual turmoil, the scenery is more tragic rather than satiric. My relationship with the city is always turning into a complex. As long as I am moving in the street and its sights, tragic or comic fade away ...

This series is about losing my faith in creating artwork. On January 8, 2020, when I found out the Ukrainian airplane had crashed in Tehran and all its 176 passengers and crew had died, I fell into a deep silence of grief and despair. Since then, different sorts of unfortunate events have come: political turbulence, a water crisis, recession, the migration of my family members and friends, and ...

Analogue photography has fascinated me from the start and I like to capture scenes without a lot of frills and work with the existing lighting situation. In the first photo “Glitzer auf Larry’s Haut” (Glitter on Larry’s skin) the light reflects on the water surface of the lake, like glitter on Larry's skin. Although the water is murky and dark, Larry glides through it in the light of the sun. ...

One of our editors interviewed Raisan Hameed, one of the talents Der Greif nominated to join FUTURES in 2023. They spoke about one of his latest projects “C-Prints Kodak”, which was exhibited at HGB Gallery in Leipzig and the relevance of archival photography in today’s artists' practices. Hameed (b. 1991) is an Iraq-born visual artist currently living in Leipzig. He received a Diploma in Fine ...

These three motifs are reminiscent of dream scenes in which the darkness of the night envelops the human body and swallows limbs. Others are reminiscent of surreal, bizarre, monstrous, and obscene motifs, in which overwhelming nature overpowers the human body and reclaims its place, and man subordinates himself. This poetic imagery talks about my fantasies and shows my mental state at the time. ...

I have been influenced by role models such as Francesca Woodman and Nan Goldin in my portraits of women. They showed me how a sensitive portrayal of intimate nudity without objectification is possible. The female portrait has long been dominated by male and binary-gaze systems, so it is all the more important that female artists show their view of the female body. It is no secret that we are ...

The project "Du und Ich" (You and I) which I have taken over the last six years, is a story about different identities, the coexistence between humans and nature, and my own fantasies. All are reminiscent of surreal, bizarre, monstrous, and obscene imagery. The photos show very personal insights into my social environment. Our mutual influences on each other created the image motifs; the title ...

I always have a meditative relationship with my photographs. I love it when they are almost frozen, exuding an intensity conveyed through the color choices. Even though the piece explores technology bias, it shouldn't be obvious but rather inviting visual energy as a tool to look between the lines, revealing what may remain unseen at first glance or even after repeated viewings. This is because ...

We periodically invite our alumni, artists we have featured in the past, to share their new work and projects with us. We’re catching up with Céline Bodin on the occasion of her show “Divine Narratives: Céline Bodin and Alice Maher” at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, running from the 26th of October until the 2nd of December 2023. Bodin is a French photographer now based in London, where she has her ...

From the 1940s, the industry standard for colour correction was the Shirley Card, invented by Kodak in North America. It functioned as the conventional standard for the colour balancing of still photographs. The card was named after the first model used for the colour balancing process, and it portrayed a white woman as the only subject, surrounded by a chart of achromatic, primary, and secondary ...

Guest Room aims to spark collaboration. Damarice Amao, associate curator for photography at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has decided to team up with photography historian and curator Matthias Pfaller. Together, they have developed the following framework for your submissions: “Empathy”. "We are looking for work that explores current politics and poetics of relation, among and across different ...

At the beginning of Feeling No - Pain I wanted to photograph people who work in the tech industry and who were experts in tech bias. However, as the pandemic progressed, I realized that it wouldn't be possible to create the documentary-style piece that I had initially envisioned. So, I explored different visual languages and became focused on portraiture. What I love about portraiture is the ...

The work explores the underrepresented role of Black women in technology and its impact on biased AI systems in relation to facial recognition systems. By using transparent props such as laptops and mobile phones, it symbolizes the inaccessibility and lack of representation in certain technological domains.

I would like to write a few words about the medium of collage and its role in my artistic practice. I started making my first analog collages in 2012-2013 while studying at university. Naturally, since that time my approach has become more complicated and conceptualized. It is quite possible that my background (I studied literature at university) influenced my method. When I create work in ...