By Adi Berardini
Parisa Azadi is an Iranian-Canadian visual storyteller and photojournalist based between Dubai, UAE, and Tehran, Iran. Her series Ordinary Grief stems from a journey that involved Azadi returning to Iran after 25 years of “self-exile and embarking on a personal and political reclamation of her identity and history.” With images spanning 2017-2022, Ordinary Grief aims to, as Azadi describes, “reconcile despair and joy, exhaustion and hope. It’s about ordinary Iranians actively trying to create new futures for themselves despite the odds.” The images explore what it means to attempt to remember after experiencing cultural amnesia, longing, and belonging. The series is a love letter to Iran, the place she was born in, but has felt estranged from. Although Iran and Palestine are two distinctly different places with different histories, the narratives of displacement, war, and grief can be felt in parallel. The following article discusses the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza alongside Azadi’s series Ordinary Grief.
Recently, I have been corresponding on video chat with Ahmed, a humanitarian aid organizer, in Gaza, Palestine. He’s in the dark (it’s 1 am with the time difference) and attempts to use his phone camera flashlight to illuminate. He shows me where he’s staying—a dark tent with a few buckets and a generator. Although we talk through WhatsApp with the help of translation, we don’t speak much verbally because of the language difference. But we share a mutual understanding in this moment through the silence. His house has been left in ruins due to the bombing; his friends and family members have been killed. He has been repeatedly displaced. When he explains the terror that he has faced I start to feel numb, like being submerged in an ice bath. The image is stamped in my mind, and although witnessing is heavy, it feels crucial. My heart breaks for him and his family.
Among the grief, life steadily keeps going, however much we might want to pause the world like the bad horror movie it can be.
The next day, he tells me that even though there’s genocidal aggression by Israeli forces, the kids are playing football (soccer for the Canadians) in the street. He flips to video chat and shows me the kids playing joyfully in the sandy terrain. A few days later, I see kids playing soccer in their front yard and the sidewalk as I go on my neighborhood walk. I think about the kids in Palestine and their resilience of spirit despite the immense trauma and losses they’ve experienced.
These circumstances demonstrate that even among great strife, life does not stop. Among the grief, life steadily keeps going, however much we might want to pause the world like the bad horror movie it can be. Although we can continue to urge for an immediate ceasefire, we cannot briefly pause life and resume. And in times of struggle, the feelings of anxiety and grief can be overwhelming. But with every story of oppression, there’s a counternarrative of resilience and resistance.
In Parisa Azadi’s ‘Ordinary Grief,’ the title a reference to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s A Journal of Ordinary Grief, Azadi returns to Iran after 25 years of what she describes as ‘self-imposed’ exile. Azadi was born in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and spent her formative years before she immigrated to Canada when she was eight. As she describes, “Throughout my travels and journey as a photographer, I realized that I was living in this emotional displacement, and I didn’t have a good sense of who I was and where I belonged. I felt like I needed to go back and to confront that sense of displacement that I felt about my identity and try to come to terms with Iran as my home, as a place where I can exist.”
I was first drawn to Azadi’s photographs for how they spotlight tender moments despite the layers of grief felt in Iran. In one photograph, two women, Nesa and her friend Yasaman, gaze out the window longingly, one lying down, and the other standing, illuminated by the outside lighting. The photo was taken during COVID-19, in a time of economic uncertainty and financial difficulty. Although the women both stare out into the void, the intimacy between them in the photograph is tangible. As Azadi explains, “In Iran, there was always this feeling of grief that was floating in the background, and you can tell by people’s body language and way they would stare off into space or out the window. And this has a lot to do with the fact that they feel like they lack a sense of agency of their own destiny.” Azadi is interested in the sense of disassociation that this provokes, exploring what it’s like to live experiencing isolation and the feeling of imprisonment.
However, as Azadi emphasizes, she hopes to show Iranians living their normal lives. “I think despite all the tragedies, I didn’t want to paint Iran as this dark and bleak place. Despite the darkness and I [see] constantly in my travels, I would see these moments of joy, lightness, and desire for social change.” And throughout the series, Iran has been experiencing a pivotal societal change in the last seven years.
A photograph features two young sisters on the beach at dusk in their bright Hello Kitty swimsuits, the youngest looking tentative and holding onto her sister’s arm. Azadi explains how she couldn’t go to the beach and play as freely in a bathing suit in the same way as these sisters, even as a child. As she recalls, “Back then, we learned to seek freedom in private. It was a way for us to just protect ourselves from outside dangers and oppressive rules. However, as she further states, “Iran is gradually changing. I am witnessing many Iranians pushing the boundaries of what is traditionally acceptable, actively trying to create a new future for themselves, despite the odds, despite the dangers.”
Another thread in Ordinary Grief is relationships with animals and connection to the natural landscape. Children hang over the water on a branch in a turquoise inlet with their backs towards the camera on a hot summer day in Mazandaran Province; tourists are pictured in front of a vast natural background, taking photographs, and looking over the terrain. A Kurdish man, Reza, is pictured tending to his horse and gazing thoughtfully but solemnly against a dark lavender sky. The photograph was taken after teaching horse riding lessons in Ilam, Iran.
A man named Akbar is pictured on top of a mountain with a walking stick. He takes a break while hiking in the mountainous area of Kilan, once known by locals as a “lost heaven.” However, the village has faced environmental challenges such as severe drought due to climate change and poor urban planning. The image holds a sense of both empowerment and contemplative sadness. A long journey has been made, but he looks out into the landscape as if he’s searching for more.
When I speak with Ahmed, he mourns his cat that died in the bombing of his home. He tells me how each morning before the war he would collect the neighbourhood cats and feed them breakfast. Another one of his favourite past times from beforehand is planting trees. When you give to the land, it gives back to you—a mutual relationship. Caring for animals is healing when they also lend care in return, in a world that can seem so gravely uncaring. The connection to the land creates a grounding in tough times but proves difficult when it’s being stripped away from you. Especially in a world so saturated with unchecked violence that justice remains a hope on the horizon.
Ahmed is a humanitarian aid worker, raising money to feed displaced families and children in Gaza. He and his volunteer team (@Palestinians_11) purchase food in bulk and then cook it in large metal pots for community members. Although he is facing great hardship, his work demonstrates the power of community and solidarity through these difficult times. It’s a narrative that the mainstream media often omits—the narrative of resilience. But he and his family shouldn’t have to be resilient. They deserve a peaceful life just like anyone else does. Heartbreakingly, it’s evident that Ahmed and his family are proud to be Palestinian but are only seeking to leave Gaza due to being forced out by violence, land theft, and occupation.
As Azadi’s Ordinary Grief explores through displaying the tender moments among the hurting of grief and loss, dreaming and desire can hold up a powerful mirror to the ugliness of death and destruction under tyrannical forces, genocide, and war. After all, one of the first things corrupt powers hope to steal is one’s dreams. It takes courage to dream after everything has been stolen away, to return home after years of self-exile, or to connect to the culture you attempted to suppress. A form of resistance to oppression can be living life with pride, despite the ever-present grief and dehumanization, and pushing for social change, despite the odds.
Check out Parisa Azadi’s Ordinary Grief on view at the Eyes On Main Street Photo Festival from June 1st until September 8th in Wilson, NC.
If you’re interested in supporting Ahmed’s family, please consider sharing or donating to the campaign to help his family evacuate Gaza safely.