EXHIBITIONS \  Abbas Kowsari

For Abbas Kowsari (Tehran, 1970) photography is an enduring source of power and a way of talking to the world. He has worked for over ten years at Iranian leading newspapers, most of them now banned from publishing. He currently works as the senior photo editor for Shargh newspaper in Tehran. Internationally he has been published in the New York Times, Time magazine, Paris Match and Der Spiegel amongst others.

The Wapping Project Bankside has selected a body of work representing several series over the period 2006-2012. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to move to a place beyond cliché ( Women”s Police Academy, 2006, pictured above for example); a moment to forget the stereotypical images of Iran and enter Kowsari’s political, witty world.

The range of Kowsari’s photography reflects the reality of modern Iranian society, whether it is dealing with the aftermath of conflict, being constrained by gender inequality, addressing notions of masculinity or confronting the raw elements of this exceptional country – water, earth, light.

Kowsari’s work is balanced somewhere between documentary photography and fine art – his saturated colours, delicate washes, and refined emotional content sit alongside his wry commentaries, and distanced characters, playing out scenes within his frames like actors caught in a Brechtian drama. All are tangled in the web of history, moments stilled in time, events which one day will be reflected upon as “then”, “in those days”.