Daaj

Male and female, black and white, light and darkness – these are the stylistic elements in modern Iranian art. In poetry, film, or photography: To illuminate the social ambivalence that defines Iran, artists are bringing what is hidden to light, and placing the visible in the shadows. Situated abroad, between an oriental fairyland and a despotic rouge nation, caught domestically between tradition and the modern age, the only escape is to find oneself a home in an Iran caught betwixt and between these contradictions.

Nooshin Shafiee’s digital photography is captivating. She delivers insight into worlds that appear anything but exotic. Everyday life is on view, illuminated in the twilight of a dwindling night. The subject itself becomes the key to the understanding of the artwork. It reveals the disquieted soul of a people whose art cannot be apolitical. In Nooshin Shafiee's work, existence is positioned between day and night in all of its political nuances – titled using a Persian metaphor for decreasing darkness: Daaj.