Stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by unintentional breaks and repetitions, disrupting the flow of phonemes, syllables, and words.

How does stuttering manifest in photography?

Repetition

We keep encountering the images of those who are no longer alive, scattered across social media. They stand before trees, the sea, flowers, and mountains-facing us. In the photos, their eyes meet ours, yet they are long gone now. The landscape endures, though where it lies, I do not know. I have only ever seen these landscapes and people on phone screens and television. I display the small images from my phone on the TV, tracing these landscapes, then photograph them again. I know it will never be like being there, but it's the only way I can get close. The one who stood there is no longer alive, and these photographs are the only remnants I have-of that sea, that mountain, or that tree whose place remains unknown to me.

What kind of paper best suits the printing of the landscape behind them? A banner, perhaps. The very banner that once served as a reminder of their death. I print the photos on banners, yet they are not the landscapes I sought. The more I stare at them, the more they retreat into silence; they are trapped in a stutter. Can a photograph ever convey reality without succumbing to a stutter?

Break

A section of the image is captured at the start of the photographic film, yet it disappears. It is as if a line burns through the photograph, splitting it into two: one part where reality has been transmuted into the image, and the other left void -a white expanse on the paper. I asked others to share any photograph they might have of someone captured at the beginning of a roll of film. I cut the photo just after the body appeared: we see someone at the border, on the edge of the burn. The one who had the chance to be captured, and yet was not. The one erased, yet never forgotten. It seems as though the break starts within the camera and stretches across the photographic paper. In the photograph, where external reality was meant to be captured within its rectangular frame, something becomes suspended-like a tongue stilled before it speaks, like stuttering.

Translated by Inliki Shadloo

I hold deep gratitude for those who shared their photos with me; their trust and generosity made this project possible. Activate Windows

Aylin Ahmadpour, Jafar Amiri, Mohammad Reza Amiri, Moein Amini, Younes Amini Tirani, Lenia Asadi, Faraz Bozorgi, Sepehr Danesh Eshraghi, Maryam Ghasemi, Kamyar Keshavarz, Nesam/ate Windo Keshavarz, Zahra Khodadadeh, Mehdi Motamedi, Fojan Parsa, Faran Pirjamali, Shima Rastin, Inliki shadloo, Farhad Yasavoli, Shahin Zariyeh, Mehrdad Zerehdaran