Tehran, the invisible city

“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”



‘Tehran, the invisible city’ is a body of work, documentary in style, which primarily serves my desire to remain close with a city, where my innermost thoughts and emotions reside.

Eleven years ago I landed in Australia as a migrant. During this time I returned to Tehran, a few weeks every few years, using street photography as a platform to reconnect with the city. In photographing Tehran, as someone who finds himself in the distance between a native and an outsider, I aim to disclose an intimate, yet critically-independent view of this less-explored megalopolis. I follow the outward transformation of the city towards a new public identity, while striving to come in terms my own identity, that finds its roots deep in this evolving land.

Salar Niknafs