Recognized as one of Iran’s most important contemporary photographers, Sadegh Tirafkan’s work offers an eloquent meditation on modern Iranian man’s relationship to his past and his search for a meaningful identity in the present. In Manhood, Tirafkan explores the multiple facets and constructions of contemporary Iranian masculinity in a compelling exhibition of projected video and large-scale colour photographic portraits. This event is being presented as part of the 19th Annual Images Festival, Canada’s largest annual event devoted exclusively to independent and experimental film, video, installation, performance and new media (April 13-22, 2006).

Blending tradition, history, and memory, Tirafkan skillfully reveals the rich nuances of a culture that has existed for over 3,000 years while exposing the homogeneous precepts of a male-dominated society. Not surprisingly, the male body plays a predominate role in the artist’s lexicon of images, with vignettes of the Zorkhaneh (the “powerhouse” of traditional Iranian body builders) contrasted with dramatically veiled self-portraits. Wood block patterns play across naked skin, revealing the unforgettable and un-erasable “tattoo” of culture and identity, while acts of heroism, patriotism, love and betrayal work themselves out in the contorted images of men wrestling, their bodies posed in sacrificial murder positions. Through symbols, icons and various cultural rituals,Tirafkan demonstrates virile choreographies symbolizing fraternity, combat and sacrifice while challenging taboos surrounding veiling and nudity in Persian society and culture. All in all, time and place collapse into this visceral search for identity and meaning in the contemporary world.