Green Wedding

Being at the house I grew-up in during my last visit to Iran and conscious about my thoughts, feelings, and memories, I embarked on a new project and began talking to a psychologist to help with my process and understanding. As a child I had dreams about getting married and having a wedding in our house. An Iranian wedding is a heavily glamorized and festive event where the bride is treated like a princess and guests come celebrate and admire her with gold and jewelry. I decided to have a wedding for myself. I made my dress at a high-end fashion boutique, bought a beautiful gold ring with my dad’s money, hired Maryam Saeedpoor (a well-known photographer,) a hair stylist, played Persian wedding music, and had few friends plus my aunt and uncle as my guests. Everyone was calling me the bride and this make believe set up really made me feel beautiful (in an unfamiliar and strange way) with my fake eyelashes and heavy makeup, keep questioning if that was me or not? Green Wedding is a series of six portraits (Emotionscapes) with limited editions, around the yard, in the pool, and inside the house which all took place in one day.

A Poem is a video we shoot on the following day with a slightly different setting with a new group of collaborators including director Khashayar Khalilkhani, and vocalist Mahboubeh Golzari, reciting a poem by Iranian poet Houshang Ebtehaj about love and longing.

Digital Photographs, 2022