Wall – A Photographic Series

“Should I claim I have no dealings with you,

Every door and wall would bear witness otherwise.”

[Saadi]

The genesis of Wall was a casual stroll down a street that carried none of my own memories, abandoned like an old mill forgotten in a quiet courtyard. For years the locals had traced those alleys, wall to wall, collecting stories in every rough and tiny brick—stories they no longer recall. To me, Tehran’s walls evoke days I never lived and scenes I never saw; yet I move close with my lens and, before pressing the shutter, I first let my hand rest on them. I feel their spirit: they are alive, breathing as I do. Still, from wall to wall they cry out in solitude: “When all that passed was the tolling silence of a city counting every alley wall, one by one.”