Influence: Amak Mahmoodian

Amak Mahmoodian is an award winning photographer who explores culture and identity and combines this with art to create a connection between dreams and memories of the past. She often works with poems, archives and images to look for linking realities in the photographs and to gain a deeper understand of the past and present. 

Mahmoodian’s work challenges the western notions of identity as she has first hand experience of being under the western view whilst she was in the Middle East. Her work shows how cultures can differ and how they can be explained to others, where in the Iran the women are under a great societal pressure to wear the full modest dress when in public and to be as put together as possible, expect when they are in their own homes, where they can be themselves in private. 

Mahmoodian’s style of image taking is very documentary but with the twist of intertwining an imagined conversation with historical figures which create very interesting collections of work. Her work is able to lure you in and inform you of issues all at once. Her images are made to start conversations in order to allow her to communicate with people  that she doesn’t have access to in the past or present due to the culture like family members, time, place and class.

Find Amal’s work here.