V / Belated Light / 2012 - 2016

Long exposure photo of a busy city roundabout at night with light trails from moving vehicles and illuminated billboards and buildings surrounding it.

LOC: Tehran / Revolution SQ

A roundabout with a modern sculpture at the center, surrounded by a flower bed and several trees, in a small town or city with buildings, parked cars, and power lines in the background.

LOC: Kangavar / Liberty SQ

A small roundabout with a central monument surrounded by trees and grass, with cars and shops in the background, mountain hills behind.

LOC: Harsin / Liberty SQ

A city square with a roundabout, landscaped with trees and a water feature, surrounded by tall buildings and a parking lot filled with yellow taxis and cars, during daytime with sunlight.

LOC: Kermanshah / Liberty SQ

Nighttime view of a city roundabout with a lit-up central monument and light trails from moving vehicles, surrounded by buildings with illuminated signs and leafless trees.

LOC: Sanandaj/ Revolution SQ

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Night scene of a decorated roadside roundabout with a white fountain in the center, wrapped in colorful string lights and small flags, with blurred light streaks from passing vehicles.

LOC: Rahim Abad- Kelachay / Revolution SQ

Long exposure photo of a city roundabout at night with light trails from moving vehicles, a small fountain with a sculpture of a bird, trees, and buildings in the background.

LOC: Kazerun / Revolution SQ

A roundabout with a central monument and landscaped gardens, surrounded by a gray road, trees, and buildings in the background, with mountains and partly cloudy sky in the distance.

In Iran, squares named Enghelab (Revolution) and Azadi (Liberty) stand at the geometric centre of cities large and small.

I photographed 75 of them in about seventy cities, from provincial capitals to small border towns: the Enghelab squares at night, the Azadi squares by day, always with the same lens and exposures of 100 to 200 seconds. Moving traffic dissolves into streaks of light, or disappears altogether, while the central monument stays still.

The title borrows from astronomy: the light of a star may have left its source long before we see it. In the same way, these names keep shining at the centre of the city, while what stands beneath them is, in many squares, something else: a fountain, a billboard, a painted kerb.

The project asks whether the presence of ideological signs in public space measures a state’s power, or only its insistence.

LOC: Kashmar/ Liberty SQ