Parisa Azadi is an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist and artist based between Iran and Dubai. In her work, she examines the nuanced dynamics of communities living in the aftermath of war in the Middle East and brings interconnected themes of social issues, gender identity and loss of home to the forefront.
With a keen interest in history and conflict, memory and displacement ‘Ordinary Grief’ is a story of tenuous reconciliation. In 2017, Parisa returned to Iran after 25 years of self-exile, where she embarked on a personal and political reclamation of her identity and history.
With images spanning 2017-2021, Ordinary Grief reconciles despair and joy, exhaustion and hope. It’s about ordinary Iranians actively trying to create new futures for themselves despite the odds.
“It’s a love letter to a country from which I feel estranged, despite having been born there, and to the people who call it home. As a woman who grew up between East and West, straddling the line between insider and outsider, my experiences are difficult, unromantic, and fragile. I’ve realized that two decades of living outside Iran brought with them a kind of cultural and personal amnesia.”
“Ordinary Grief is also about what it means to forget and what it means to (try to) remember. Always, I’m attuned to joy, despite the hardships: I sought moments of serenity, celebration, and ritual in the shadows of perpetual grief. The photographs mark the passage of time as they document physical, emotional, and political limbo: they question what it means to long and to belong.”
Ordinary Grief
Exhibition Details
May 27 – June 12 2022
Galerie Melike Bilir
Admiralitätstraße 71
D-20459 Hamburg
Curated by Bettina Freimann
Opening hours: Wed – Fri 3 – 6 pm | Sat 1 – 3 pm
T +49 (0)40 29 89 73 82
info@melikebilir.com
www.melikebilir.com
