Aria Shahrokhshahi on how his OpenWalls Arles winning portrait reconciled familial wounds

Picture © Aria Shahrokhshahi, OpenWalls Arles 2021 Single Picture Winner.

 “It’s a method for me and my mum to heal our relationship, for us to get nearer and for me to get to know her differently,” says Aria Shahrokhshahi, of his OpenWalls Arles winning portrait: Mum went and Fell

“She was sat within the kitchen and I simply fucking grabbed the kitchen desk, moved it out of the way in which, arrange the 4×5, and took the picture,” says Iranian-British photographer Aria Shahrokhshahi. He’s talking about his winning picture for BJP’s OpenWalls Arles award, Mum went and Fell, which was proven as a part of the award exhibition at Galerie Huit Arles in 2021. “You may actually see her by means of and thru,” he says. Razor-sharp in its focus on ache and therapeutic – feelings inherent to the human situation – it’s a portrait that reveals as a lot about Shahrokhshahi’s mom because it does about us.

Tender but stark, the picture is an unforgiving perception into the fragility of his dad or mum’s life. It depicts Shahrokhshahi’s mom sitting in her dressing robe, lips tightly pursed, a crop of fiery pink hair framing her face. “She sort of seems to be childish, like a baby as a result of she’s obtained no guard up, no masks,” he says. A lightning bolt sew programs throughout her brow; a deflated look is ready deep into her face. Shahrokhshahi’s {photograph} leans into ache, capturing a trusting change between mom and son. It varieties a part of an ongoing sequence that Shahrokhshahi says will proceed till her dying days.

Shahrokhshahi speaks over the cellphone from South Korea after a full day of capturing a business undertaking. He sees his OpenWalls winning portrait very like he does all of his work: an investigation into the connection he has with his topic. “The image is from a sequence of photos about my very complicated relationship with my mother,” he explains. Photographing his mom, and certainly exhibiting the picture, has been a type of catharsis. “It’s a method for me and my mum to develop our relationship and to heal our relationship, for us to get nearer and for me to get to know her differently.”

For the 26-year-old photographer, seeing the picture of his mom framed and hung at Galerie Huit Arles was a second of nice magnitude. “Seeing her in a correct gallery is a wierd feeling,” he recollects. “There’s one thing so particular about seeing your image on the wall in actual life.” Though his mom couldn’t see the exhibition in individual, Shahrokhshahi despatched her footage of the picture on show, which he mentioned drove residence heightened emotions of gratitude and accomplishment. “She discovered the entire thing depraved,” he chuckles. “And I felt actually happy with her and in a method, I felt happy with myself.”

Exhibiting not solely affected Shahrokhshahi’s private outlook but in addition impacted him professionally. In keeping with the Nottingham-born photographer, exhibiting his work contained in the Seventeenth-century mansion Galerie Huit Arles alongside the world’s biggest gathering for photographers, Les Rencontres d’Arles, was an enormous achievement. “Having your work being proven in a spot that I’ve admired for therefore lengthy is sort of a dream,” he says. “Having your work present in Arles is an actual milestone as a photographer.”

When requested what makes his relationship with his mom complicated, Shahrokhshahi is reserved, hyper-aware of the pitfalls of talking on behalf of one other. “I’m nonetheless defining what it’s to me and my mum as a result of it’s not solely as much as me, however my mum as effectively,” he explains. He makes reference to a troublesome childhood spent caring for her however has chosen to maintain this chapter of his life resolutely personal, as a substitute selecting to let the picture inform its story. 

This sensitivity is a mark of Shahrokhshahi’s respect and is deeply rooted in his strategy to photographing weak folks with out ethical judgement. His portfolio, which centres on social points, consists of a sequence on a good friend with a watch situation in The Gambia, migrant communities in Calais, and kids residing within the suburbs of São Paulo. The connections Shahrokhshahi varieties by means of his work may be lifelong, because it’s widespread for him to reside among the many folks he pictures.

Since being recognised as an OpenWalls winner, the documentary photographer has continued chronicling social points with his camera. He has frolicked in Ukraine capturing the lives of these on the border, in addition to displaying his work in an exhibition by Iranian photographers. He believes that OpenWalls gave him the arrogance and conviction to work on such tasks. “What awards like this do is they permit you the platform and entry to folks to soundboard the themes, the concepts and the path of a undertaking,” he says. “They provide the work a baseline stage of validity – just a little increase up or an additional push in the proper path.”

OpenWalls Arles is now open for entries – don’t miss the prospect to get exhibited at Galerie Huit Arles subsequent summer time.