The Despair

I am 32. I belong to the generation that was born in early years after Islamic Revolution of Iran. The generation that still after more than 30 years is seeking its identity. We feel fragmentation and disconnection in every aspect of our life. We were born in war. 8 years of our childhood when we should run and play was wasted tracking Iraqi missiles in the sky. Our only friends were plastic red balls to play football in the streets. When we were teenagers, it was the campaign against so-called Western cultural plague, days full of fear and anxiety, when we were captured in the streets without any reason or even beat for wearing a Metallica cap or Michael Jackson t-shirt. When we were young, we voted for reformation enthusiastically. We shouted our fears and all of our youth energy for reformation in the streets. The excited days of election passed and then gradually this energy was repressed and receded. We achieved nothing. We just found out that the political games of power in Iran is very complicated and hard to understand. Days were passed colorless and spiritless and we became older. The best days of our youth, when it was our time to flourish, was the era of sanctions, economic recession and unemployment; 8 years of hopelessness and demolition, 8 years of repression and suffocation, 8 years of cultural, social and economic collapse. 2009 conflicts was like a hammer mashed on our head. We became weaker and smaller. Today, after more than 30 years, this generation is still seeking its status. We don’t know where we stand. We just live hopelessly, without any goal. The future for us is ambiguous and foggy. This generation has the highest rate of divorce, separation, addiction, suicide, unemployment, immigration and depression. We are now a sedimented pile of violence, fear, anxiety, love and failure. This portrait series aim to present part of this sedimentation.