Walls

Following Mahsa Amini’s death and the protests in Iran in 2022, messages began appearing on walls and other surfaces throughout the city. I started photographing these inscriptions, including words that had been painted over, scratched away or made only partly legible. I was interested not only in what the messages said, but also in the attempts to remove them and in the physical traces left behind. The photographs record different stages of this process. Fresh writing may remain clearly visible, while elsewhere only fragments of letters, layers of paint or changes in texture indicate that something had been present. Covering a message does not always restore the wall to its previous condition; the act of erasure can produce another visible mark. "Walls" looks at urban surfaces as temporary sites of public expression and control. By concentrating on paint, writing, damage and concealment, the project asks what happens to a message after someone tries to silence it, and what can remain visible even when its original words can no longer be fully read.