{"id":1657,"date":"2026-05-31T20:38:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2026-05-31T20:38:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:38:49","slug":"from-iran-presents-stunning-and-heroically-scaled-images-of-events-for-which-there-are-no-visual-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=1657","title":{"rendered":"\u2018From Iran\u2019 presents stunning and heroically scaled images of events for which there are no visual records"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The heroically scaled images in Azadeh Akhlaghi\u2019s \u201cFrom Iran: A Visual Testimony\u201d are stunning. One look, and you keep looking. They\u2019re also disconcerting, twice over. Some of that is intended: The pictures are a bravura demonstration of that next-to-last word in the show\u2019s title. Some of it\u2019s unintended: The images also raise questions about that concluding word in the title. <\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Thom Sesma on his pilgrim credentials, Trader Joe\u2019s trail mix, and never checking a bag<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Iran: A Visual Testimony\u201d runs at Harvard\u2019s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology through March 21. <\/span><\/p>\n

Aklaghi was born in Iran in 1978, the year before the shah was deposed. When she was awarded the Peabody\u2019s prestigious Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography, in 2019, no one might have predicted Operation Epic Fury. Even though none of the images relate to the war, all relate to 20th-century Iranian history, which makes the lessons they have to offer even more useful for Americans, perhaps, than Iranians. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 16 photographs in \u201cFrom Iran\u201d come from a project called \u201cThe Vicious Circle,\u201d which presents 11 key events between 1908 and 1979 \u2014 events for which there aren\u2019t visual documentation. So these are photographic kin to history paintings \u2014 in the tradition of Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s \u201cThe Surrender of Breda,\u201d say, or, closer to home, Emanuel Leutze\u2019s \u201cWashington Crossing the Delaware.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Aklaghi stages these scenes on a large scale. Both in being staged and being big they recall the photographs of Jeff Wall or Gregory Crewdson. Also there\u2019s very much a cinematic aspect to them (the sense of sweep, the highly detailed art direction). That Aklaghi was an assistant director for the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami does not come as a surprise. <\/span><\/p>\n

Aklaghi spent 14 years working on these images \u2014 \u201ctableaux\u201d might be a more accurate word. A couple of making-of videos show how elaborate and exacting the staging is, as does the panning of each image in close-up in a film loop on a large monitor. The screen is 87 inches across and 52 inches high.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three of the photographs get their own triptych. They\u2019re big, too \u2014 the largest is just over 3 feet by 15 feet \u2014 big enough to seem almost like portals into the Iranian past. The effect furthers Aklaghi\u2019s aim, which is to collapse the distance between present and past.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy reconstructing events that were never photographed,\u201d she writes, \u201cI seek to question the authenticity of images and the ways collective memory is shaped through absence as much as evidence. This project reflects on that recurring cycle and imagines a path beyond it.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This is where that word \u201ctestimony\u201d in the title comes in. But a visual rendering of something that actually happened for which no visual record exists \u2014 reenactments, really \u2014 surely doesn\u2019t qualify as testimony, let alone a path beyond. No matter how extensively researched, no matter how visually impressive, no matter how intellectually serious, such rendering exists in an n<\/i>-space between fact and fiction. Worse, it assumes a very 21st-century view of 20th-century actuality: that only what can be seen as image can be grasped as fact. <\/span><\/p>\n

Iran and Armenia share a 27-mile border. That may be one of the only things \u201cFrom Iran\u201d has in common with the two shows currently at the Project Save Photography Archive, in Watertown. \u201cWinslow Martin: My Armenia: 1999-2008\u2033 and \u201cLike There\u2019s No Tomorrow: Astrig Agopian\u201d run through Aug. 29.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Pulling customs from \u2018sanctuary\u2019 city airports would cause chaos, business groups say<\/a><\/p>\n

Founded in 1975, Project Save has more than 150,000 photographs in its collection, documenting the past and present of the Armenian global diaspora. <\/span><\/p>\n

Winslow Martin is an Arlington-based photojournalist who first visited Armenia in 1999. He has returned multiple times. \u201cWelcomed like family through times of everyday life, joyous celebrations and tragic unrest I have become devoted to Armenia, its people, culture and enduring natural beauty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That devotion comes through in the 30 black-and-white photographs on display. All but one are 22 inches by 15 inches, an engaging but not imposing size. They\u2019re unmatted, with black frames, giving them a chaste, almost severe look. <\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the photographs evoke a timeless culture: men in religious robes, sheep being herded down a village street. Others show scenes that wouldn\u2019t seem out of place in, say, Watertown: modern apartment buildings, a pickup truck, one of a pair of boys sprawled in a tree is wearing a Nike shirt. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s telling that food figures in almost a quarter of the photographs: The way people live their daily lives is what draws Martin. What\u2019s more daily, or intimate, than food? The images blend fascination and deference. Rapt gaze never turns into prying stare.<\/span><\/p>\n

Astrig Agopian is a French-Lebanese-Armenian journalist and filmmaker. \u201cLike There\u2019s No Tomorrow\u201d looks at Armenian refugees in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the southern Caucasus. Although the exhibition includes photographs and videos, it\u2019s more testimony (that word again) than artistic enterprise. <\/span><\/p>\n

The most striking thing in the show is a display of keys that refugees took with them from their former homes. In their mundane materiality these small everyday objects speak to something universal. What\u2019s the likeliest thing to be in your pocket or purse: a set of keys, no? They almost shockingly convey what their owners have had to endure. If Aklaghi wants to help us remember. and Martin to help us see. Agopian wants to help us feel<\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

FROM IRAN: A VISUAL TESTIMONY<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

At Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, through March 21. 617-496-1027, peabody.harvard.edu <\/span><\/p>\n

WINSLOW MARTIN: MY ARMENIA 1999-2008<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

LIKE THERE\u2019s NO TOMORROW: Astrig Agopian<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

At Project Save Photograph Archive, 600 Pleasant St., Watertown, through Aug. 29. 617-923-4542, www.projectsave.org <\/span><\/p>\n

Read more AI companies used their work. Local authors are fighting back.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The photographs in \u201cFrom Iran: A Visual Testimony\u201d at Harvard\u2019s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology recreate scenes from the past. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018From Iran\u2019 presents stunning and heroically scaled images of events for which there are no visual records - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=1657\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018From Iran\u2019 presents stunning and heroically scaled images of events for which there are no visual records - 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