Jalali – The Familiar Stranger

Born in Tehran, photographer Bahman Jalali (1944–2010) played a significant role in educating a new generation of Iranian photographers. Over the course of three decades, he taught photography at several universities in Iran. Jalali lived during one of contemporary Iran’s most crucial periods, and turned to documentary photography to register the changes brought upon the Iranian people and their living environment by rapid modernisation, revolution, and war. He travelled extensively throughout the country, and saw the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War. ‘The Familiar Stranger’ presents a selection of images from three collections, along with portraits of Iranians of various ethnicities.