The Life of an Itinerant Through a Pinhole
Portraits and places by Gholamreza Amirbeigi
Narrated by: Behzad Khosravi Noori
Opening on 30th December 2016 up to 16th January 2017.

Aaran Projects
No. 5, Lolagar st., Neauphle Le Chateau.
Tel +98 21 66702233
Working days, except Saturdays 1-7 PM and Fridays 4-8 PM.


Excerpts from catalogue:

The photographs are the story of the life of a people who migrated to Tehran after the Second World War, a migration that lasted until 1956 due to the effects of war and the subsequent economic devastation and epidemic bankruptcy of smaller cities. This particular group of people migrated from Maimeh, a small city halfway between Kashan and Isfahan in the center of the Iranian plateau. They found a place to live in the southwest District 17 of Tehran; near Emamzadeh Hassan, the most populated district in Tehran with 4 times the population of other districts. (Behzad Khosravi Noori)

I have looked at all the photographs. I walk my mind throughout the atmosphere of all these photographs and I pause here where the collection breaks from tradition and extends beyond the framework of the role and function of photography during grandfather’s period of productivity. It is the impromptu situations, or the relaxed and unconstrained themes as well as the photographer, or the departure from the routine redundant posing for the camera, the unnecessary arrangements of black drapes and the disregard for the macro-standards of photography of that era, meaning distancing from the common passage of events before the lens in order to keep a connection with time and history; and of course, memorialization. (Pirooz Kalantari)

Behzad Khosravi Noori has laboriously retraced the technology behind these pictures and found its origin. This apparatus is a rudimentary camera obscura; basically a pinhole camera of the type that is still today used in e.g. Afghanistan, in Brazil and on Cuba. He also tentatively identified the person referred to above as ‘Pilgrim’ and ‘Revolutionary’ as his grandfather, Gholamreza.(Charlotte Bydler)

Photographs are more than images. They are social objects, filled with alternative histories. They evoke memories, stories. They tell stories of the social changes in the contemporary Iran from below. Today, more than a half century after the photographs were taken, photographed subjects, men and women, old and young have entered the exclusive art salons, looking back at us and demand recognition. A recognition they have been denied while alive. (Shahram Khosravi)


Behzad Khosravi Noori (Tehran 1976) is an artist and writer based in Stockholm and Tehran. He graduated from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, with a Master in Motion Picture and Master in Art in Public Realm at Konstfack University College of Art and Design, where he focused on multiple identities within the discourse of European multiculturalism and hyper-politicized socio-political environments. Currently he is holding a PhD position at Konstfack/KTH in Stockholm.