13 Questions with Shahab Naseri - Magazine Issue02
Shahab Naseri is an Iranian artist featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE02, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj about his photographic projects Ashura day and My Mother.
In today’s world the utilities for creating art are many, educational resources exist in a vast measure as well, yet the number of artists and admirable pieces of art is still not considerable, in fact, an artist whose art is drawn from independent thoughts and ideas is a true artist, we must greaten our insight and in order to achieve this, there is no other way than finding the true self and the answer to this question: what would you share with your world?
Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?
Thank you for this opportunity. In my opinion, art is an innate effort, a self-rewriting in a delicate form to discover the world; I work because I believe in creation, each form of art, in the flesh of a strike, is a teacher and a culture, in case it reaches the true result. You can be an ordinary citizen and live a good life, but I can’t, maybe I must see most of the issues I’m surrounded with clearer through the perspective of art using the chance I have by the life I live, and share my gained possession by my artistic insight with the rest of the world.
Can you talk a little about your formative years as an artist?
I started photography with much passion at the beginning of 2012. At first, I chose social documentary photography (social pathology) like many other colleagues of mine, because of my geographical, cultural and social conditions, but in the past two years, I have increased my focus and studies on contemporary documentary issues and staged-art every once in a while. I held a solo photo exhibition in 2016, participated in numerous group photo exhibitions; I’ve participated in many festivals and competitions globally, won prizes, received admirations and have been introduced as the honorable participant of many other contests, some are International Sony Photography Awards 2018, SIPAContest 2018, HIPAA, and The International Photographic Salon of Japan… Long be short, I have been quite active!
What themes does your art focus on and how are they reflected through your Iranian background?
Iran is an ancient land with a history of true artists, poets, and philosophers. Most of the Iranian artists have a content-based insight (not only aesthetical) for issues concerning the Existence, earth, and matters of self-knowledge, in fact, this type of space of thought is a reminder of a natural Iranian heritage of ideology originated in our ancestors such as Hafez, which currently exists clearly within my and all other Iranian artists’ works. In my recent (contemporary documentary and staged-art) works, I represent my Iranian content through a western formation. My work is a combination of these two elements.
How does your work pose questions about gender, identity, and space?
I have generally focused on issues with human origination; the dominant system over society enforces cultures and contracts on people, which is the reason that humans’ sexual identity also runs under the influence of social factors and not just individual factors. Truth be told, in Iran, identity and sexuality are under the strict influences of religious contracts and each individual is obligated to act upon the religious demands, therefore, the female identity, according to this way of treatment in the religious organization, has certain limits in behavior, expectations, and templates.
Where did you get your imagery from (What, if any, sources did you use)?
I have a professional photographing camera that I have purchased personally by my private costs. I have narrowed my models and travels down to my siblings and nearby locations due to my improper financial conditions. I rent the necessary gear that I need for my work advancement. In Iran, Art has lost its sacred definition and not a single organization goes through the trouble of showing a little support for the artists while tons of fake and unreal governmental low-level custom-built artists (!) are intensively supported by funds and materials.
I realized you return to your childhood memory with the photograph “My Mother”, while also commenting on today’s contemporary society in Iran with your more documentary images. In Arab society, “Mother” or “الأم“ has a significant poetic meaning. Could we talk about this poesy in Contemporary Iranian society?
Yes, it’s absolutely correct; “Mother” or “الأم“ has a divine meaning also in Iran because this reaction (motherly) has a biological-genetic origination and it can be limited neither geographically nor culturally, mother is mother everywhere with dignity, patience, and kindness in her inner and outer self even if in the homeless folks’ camp and in the harshest circumstances. Mother is the sweetest and rarest being in the world ever created, someone who loves with no expectations. I believe that if I’m ever to create a true work of art from myself in this world, it will for sure be originated in my family.
How similar do you feel it is to the Arab representation?
If you mean my “My Mother” work, I sense, “a lot”! Because this piece of art has a middle-eastern point of view for the Women and not just Iranian; clothing, dignity, and purity inside, it reminds the cultural, behavioral and geographical similarities between a Kurd, an Arab and a Persian mother and vice versa. An Arab mother has the special motherly passion and sensitivity just as an Iranian mother which is the outcome of passage through years of difficulty and pain.
Calligraphy has a history of being a substitute for figural representation in Iranian art and Islamic art in general. What role does Photography instead play in your art?
In my idea, photography is a newborn child in Iran; artists have failed to advance side by side with the world in this era except for the documentary field, in which case this lack of advancement doesn’t necessarily have an individual root and can be because of the infirmity for introduction and production of the required proper fields of education for photography by the government and the people.
What was the influence on your work or the way in which it was made?
In manners of form and the way of expression, I have created my work under the influence of contemporary insight, which is growing in the west, but its concept is Social-experimental; stability, silence, minimalism and implicit content by center pointing compositions and a boundless message which according to Roland Barthes, “Studium” is one of the factors of this piece of art.
Given the growing exposure of your artwork to a Western audience, what role would you like to see your work have as a part of the discourse on Iranian and Arab women?
To me, this piece of work is like paying my share of tribute to Iranian and Arab mothers, “My Mother” is the reflection of an Iranian mother and an Arab mother with common historical and cultural origins, but this is not the reach of the idea I’ve had behind this photo, matters such as sexual limitations and sanctions, lack of freedom to show and introduce the Women as an independent and respected identity are also parts of the ideology behind this photo.
They say if you could be anything but an artist, don’t be an artist. What career are you neglecting right now by being an artist?
It’s a tough question which I have never thought through, though physics and cosmology have always been my favorite majors in case art wasn’t a part of my life. -Nevertheless, art has deprived me of many things in life but art is my passion and there is no way I can let go of it.
What current series are you working on?
Currently, I’m in the pre-production stage of a staged-art collection, which is focused on crowdedness and bewilderment of the new age and a short film with an artistic point of view will be in my future actions to take.
Do you have any upcoming shows or collaborations?
Not any particular group projects, though concerning last year’s earthquake of Kermanshah, west of Iran, I have recently uploaded a documentary photo collection on my lens culture profile, due to the unsupported artist society, including myself, I vaguely see a future of exhibition or manifestation for my artistic activities.
