The selection of fourteen photographs and a video titled The City are images of Tehran obscured in an unknown layer of grey. Taken from various locations of high elevation in the north of the city, the images capture its polluted air and its suffocating atmosphere. The calculated aesthetics of the series suggests not only a climatic catastrophe but also its effects on the society as a whole. A city at above 1000 meters and of fourteen-million people, Tehran’s air is both thin and thick and it is seen while its city is breathed.
The Artist
Mehrdad Naraghi (Tehran, 1978) received his BS in Materials Science Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.  A self-taught photographer, he has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions including Crisis of History, Framer Framed (Amsterdam, 2015), Format Festival (Derby, UK, 2014), Daily Farm, Museum of Contemporary Art (Xinjiang, China, 2014) and165 Years of Iranian Photography, Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, France, 2009).  His works have been published in La photographie iranienne (Un regard sur la création contemporaine en Iran) (Loco Publishing, 2012) and Different Sames: New Perspectives in Contemporary Iranian Art (Thames and Hudson, 2009).
In 2013 he was a finalist of the International Fine Art Photography Award in the Grand Prix de la Decouverte, in 2011 he was a finalist of the Gallery Huite Photography Open Salon in Arles, France and he was a finalist in Photoquai 2007: The Biennial of the Images of the World.  In 2013, the Bibliotheque National de France acquired one of his works from The Fairyland series for their collection.  He is currently completing a series on Japanese Gardens for the Photoquai’s Residencies program for which he was selected in 2014.