In White Square, Shadi Ghadirian has photographed objects of military use - helmet, canteen, ammunition belt, grenade etc. - that she decorates with a little red silk ribbon. Removed from their context, these accoutrements of war appear at once menacing and delicate, their aggressivity tempered by the feminine element. With Nil, Nil, these same objects penetrate the domestic space: the menace of conflict grafted onto peaceful everyday life, while in a way also becoming contained by the tranquility of the familial location. My Press Photos comprise images drawn from press-agency catalogues with old portraits of Iranian military men. Across time and space, war's violence sadly reminds us of its universal, essentially male, dimension. As for her series 'Qajar', the title evokes the dynasty of the same name, under which portrait photography was introduced in Iran. Veiled and dressed as in times of old, posing before 19th-century décors, women presenting objects like a radio, a mountain bike or a vacuum cleaner, like a bridge between two worlds, built upon the rather futile, though so-human, need to possess.
