Brothers/soldiers: trauma and wartime Ahwaz in the art of Sadegh Tirafkan

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the significance of a series of posthumously discovered, staged, colour photographs of twin boys holding rifles, as well as a short screenplay entitled ‘Tulips Bloom’, that the internationally-recognized artist Sadegh Tirafkan (1965–2013) created as a youth in Ahwaz, Iran, in 1982. Taking into consideration the context of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) and the related culture of martyrdom that so strongly affected the region and the artist's imagination reveals a subtext of trauma that may – the author proposes – explain the prominence of visual motifs, symbols and themes that recur throughout the artist's subsequent 30-year career. The author relies upon visual analysis of the artist's photographic art, published interviews, comparative visual analysis involving Iranian visual culture from the era (Balaghi; Chelkowski and Dabashi; Saramifar; Varzi); art history (Daneshvari; Foster; Keshmirshekan; Nazari; Porter); and theories of trauma from psychology (Herman), literary theory (Caruth) and sociology (Alexander; Erikson), in order to provide a new understanding of the artist's work throughout his career, from 1982 to 2013, and how the Iran-Iraq War shaped notions of Iranian post-Revolutionary identity in terms of military sacrifice and death.

KEYWORDS:

• Photography
• Iranian art
• masculinity
• Iran-Iraq war
• trauma
• martyrdom

Acknowledgements

Sadegh Tirafkan; Ghassem Tirafkan; Tirafkan Cultural Foundation; Amirali Ghassemi; Hamid Khezri; Amir H. Mahmoody; Marjane Mohammadian; Minoo Henry; Hamid Severi; Mohsen Rastani, Hamidreza Naderian; Shiva Nasiri; Christine Ross; Talia Golland; Rob Echlin; and the anonymous reviewer for their valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea D. Fitzpatrick

Andrea D. Fitzpatrick (she/her; they/them) is an associate professor, history and theory of art, Department of Visual Arts, and a member of the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, at the University of Ottawa. Their research focuses on contemporary Iranian art as well as contemporary art from the Global South, Europe and North America. The challenges of interpreting art created in times of conflict, and as political resistance, are of particular interest. In 2012, they guest-curated two group exhibitions of Iranian lens-based art at two, acclaimed artist-run centres in Canada: SAW Gallery in Ottawa (‘Ciphers: Tension with Tradition’) and Gallery 44 in Toronto (‘Gender and Exposure’). Sadegh Tirafkan was the most senior artist to feature in both exhibitions. Currently, Fitzpatrick is researching methodologies for understanding contemporary art from the Global South.