As a hobby, during my adolescent years, I pictured myself as "others." Later on, as a photographer, this notion took on another format. That is, I placed myself as the "others" in the photographs. Five years ago, while I was in Chogha-Zanbil Temple, shooting self- portraits for a project, I began to study Hammurabi, the King of Babel known to have written codes of law, some 2500 years ago. A few were most interesting. Code 129: If a man's wife was caught sleeping with another man, they were tied together and drowned. Code 133: If a man's wife refused her husband, she was condemned and drowned. These photographs reenact the nightmare of the era and I have tried to place myself as the woman, the lover, the husband and King Hammurabi, who wrote and implemented the law. This photographic series was taken in Shoush, within the Chogha-Zanbil Temple Citadel, in South-West Iran, next to Karoun River during March 2001 and was exhibited in full at Seyhoun Gallery, Tehran, November 2001.

The sword and the long are among the most important icons of manhood in Iranian culture. The long is a defensive weapon rather then an aggressive one and it is used to defend one's dignity and country. In addition to covering a man's body, the long is also a symbol of masculinity and the humanity of real men. In ancient Islamic civilization, the long was worn by warriors, and the fabric made of gold and silk threads. In this collection I tried to convey the humanistic message embedded in these ancient symbols of manhood in my culture, lest they are forgotten.

I can't remember who said this. In a crowd you see a thousand faces. Behind each face there is a story. We all have our own stories, normally sad ones. We can tell, simply by looking at each other's face, we can hear those stories. We communicate the secrets of our hearts and souls with the slightest hint. Our fleeting experiences have at least these in common: As and Bs and Cs.

According to a number of religious texts, Abraham was about to sacrifice his son to convey his devotion to God. An angel offered a sheep as he placed the blade against Ismail's throat. In the tragic story of Sohrab and Rostam from the Shahnameh, the "Book of Kings" by Ferdowsi, Rostam realizes that in battle he has killed his own son, a son he had never seen before the day of their encounter. Rostam holds his son, drenched in blood, overcome with raw emotions of love and loss. In the Shia sect, a branch of Islam, on the anniversary of the death and martyrdom of Hussein's (grandson of Prophet Mohammad), followers wound themselves with metal machetes, offering their blood in his honor and memory. The photographic series that I have named "Sacrifice" is my artistic interpretation of the emotional impact these stories have had on me since childhood.

Presentation formats:
The Sacrifice series is created as a video and as photographs. The photographs are triptych image with a central image and two identical ones on each side; the video presentation follows the same format and is projected using three monitors to reflect the images in motion.
Presentation:
SARIFICE is offered in two- format: Video and Photographs. The photographs are triptych image with a central image and two identical ones on each side; the video presentation follows the same rule and is projected by three monitors to reflect the images in motion.

When I was photographing Persepolis, many of my self-portraits were in front of Cuneiform and that gave me the idea of doing some in a studio, this time with only the Cuneiform as the background. I like the style of the script and I use it in my works repeatedly. This series was completed by Farsi handwriting as the background, afterwards.

With the rise of the Achaemenid Dynasty the Persian civilization came into being. The glory and grandeur of any civilization is no doubt reflected in the monuments left behind by its builder. Darius I erected Persepolis in 5 th century BCE and his successors added to its splendor. For non-Iranian friends, Persepolis today stands as a symbol of Ancient Iran, so much so that "Iran - Persepolis" have come to be one and the same thing. It is perhaps because of this that for the past several years I have framed myself in the archways and against the engravings of Jamshid's throne – to better understand what it was that the monument exudes. With the current collection I have tried to introduce other people from different historical settings into the frame. I hope that I have done this in a way that wouldn't require further explanation.

Within twenty years, the world's population will reach seven billion. Denser and younger in developing countries, population is the Achilles' heel of these regimes, which considers this group's increasing needs and demands as a problematic issue. In the Multitude series, I depict population as a serious issue facing Iran. Population is shaped by the gathering of individuals whose behavior varies according to their situations. People, regardless of their religious and ideological beliefs, search for an inner peace and therefore carry out symbolic actions. The combination of photos and patterns in vast juxtapositions of people and motifs signify the Multitude.

I always wanted to alter parts of my photographs to achieve more expressive and more abstract forms. I attempted this by drawing on photographs before. This collection is an amalgamation of photography and drawing. Here I chose to draw directly on photographs in the darkroom to create more abstract forms. I took a number of photos, which were specifically designed to be changed by chemicals in the dark room, hence the name, Drawing in the Darkroom.

The human body has been an inspiration for artists for centuries. When you study Persian art, before and after Islam, figurative images have been represented in different formats, metal works, ceramics, miniature and oil paintings, although you rarely come across the naked body. While researching this project, I came across images from our ancient past, a rare ancient practice amongst the Sekaha tribe and noble pre-Achaemenid Kings, who painted their bodies with abstract and figurative images (tattoos). I became fascinated with this imagery and it inspired me to continue and develop this as a photographic series. I have painted my body, the human canvas, using the same decorative wood blocks that are used in traditional Iranian textile design to connect me to my very ancient past.

The project is an effort to unite the curvatures of Persian calligraphy with the curves of a human body. To achieve this, we have made use of the Mohr technique, which involves stamps that the Iranian- Islamic culture has variously employed to print on fabrics. Each work within this project is unique.

The carpet is emblematic of Persian culture: its symbolism, seasonality, richness, diversity, and continuity in time and in history. I have been obsessed by the parallelism and marriage between this symbolic, intricately- loomed object and the people to whom it belongs. In my project, I have emphasized the population issue as it is faced not only by Iran but also globally. I am also considering human- kind's behavior in various situations. My goal is to demonstrate that all people, regardless of gender, culture, and religion, are indeed seeking inner peace and sanctity.

Chogha-Zanbil located near SUSA in the Khouzestan Province, south west of Iran. The Elamite ruler Untash-Gal chose this place as a center of pilgrimage in 1300 B.C.E. The city was surrounded by two walls. There are two five-floor ziggurats in the city, each 175 feet high. On the top of each ziggurat was a temple. Ashur –Banipal destroyed Chogha-Zanbil in 640 B.C.

Based on statistics, there are nine million youth and young adults between the ages of sixteen to twenty- four in Iran. This made me think: How can we protect them from the attack of some destructive cultures? Day by day, the budget spent on educational and cultural programs is decreasing while the numbers of meaningless and useless websites and Satellite TV shows are increasing.  This crisis is not limited to the younger generation in Iran.  This is a global crisis. Media is focusing on shows that have no actual value and are investing heavily in reality shows to keep viewers entertained. Large corporations are putting all their efforts toward commercialization and they encourage superficiality. Are we going to find a way to guide this young generation their true culture and identity?

Tehran, a city with ten million inhabitants, is my home and a constant preoccupation, like other big cities in the world, in this polluted and busy city human beings are lost & it seems that they have no control over their destinies. They build walls around themselves without being aware of them. One can see many people passing by these walls every minute. But I can see only walls with no human beings in front of them.

Reviewing Persian miniatures and studying pictorial carpets of recent years, one comes across a new aspect of Persian & Islamic Art, which has been talked about and interpreted in so many different ways. From my perspective, as an Iranian contemporary artist, these elements of art, which are timeless, have been reflected in my work and have also provided an inspiration. For many, the miniatures and carpets are decorative objects but in this new project of mine, I have tried to understand the beauty and secrets behind them.

This collection is the recreation of my memories of the eight-year war with Iraq (1980- 1988). The War started when I was an adolescent and it ended when I was an adult. In the meantime many of my friends died. I still recall those friends who died young in the war. Twenty years have gone by since then and yet they haven't grown older. I miss them all dearly.This collection is the recreation of my memories of the eight-year war with Iraq (1980- 1988). The War started when I was an adolescent and it ended when I was an adult. In the meantime many of my friends died. I still recall those friends who died young in the war. Twenty years have gone by since then and yet they haven't grown older. I miss them all dearly.

This series of colour photographs, never before exhibited or published, was found in my brother's Tehran studio two years after his death. I remember precisely when he took them: he was seventeen years old, in Ahwaz, in South-West Iran, near the Iraq border, where our family lived in the early years of the War. Sadegh had no training in photography and no knowledge of Western art history or contemporary art at that time. However, he read voraciously and was interested in theatre and had been directing plays, small productions with youth, in the city since he was fifteen. He staged the twin boys at a pastry shop on Khahshahriar St. and in front of a nearby mosque, with rifles that were readily available due to the local war effort. According to Professor Andrea Fitzpatrick, of Ottawa University, they will cause the "re-writing of Iranian photographic history." 1 Ghassem Tirafkan, Director, Tirafkan Cultural Foundation, Tehran and Toronto

For centuries, the Zoorkhaneh has been a great place for Iranian men who are interested in having their body and their minds built together. I tired to capture the fact that, these people, even after a few hundred years, kept the same environment and looks, but not the same spirit and attitude.

Reviewing Persian Miniatures and studying pictorial carpets of recent years, one comes across a new aspect of Persian and Islamic Art, which has been talked about and interpreted in so many different ways. From my perspective, as an Iranian contemporary artist, these elements of art, which are timeless, has been reflected in my work and has also provided an inspiration. For many, the miniatures and carpets are decorative objects but in this new project of mine. I have tried to understand the beauty and secrets behind them. have at least these in common: A's and B's and C's.

Darius the Great started building the Achaemenid capital Persepolis in 518 B.C.E. His son Xerxes continued building up the capital, as did Artaxerxes III. The Iranians celebrated Norouz, the Iranian New Year, in Persepolis where the king gave an audience to the higher classes & ambassadors. Persepolis was sacked and destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.E.