Contact Festival #17 – Newsha Tavakolian: Iran. Three Cameras. One Country.

Newsha Tavakolian was sixteen when she began taking photographs in Iran. Since then, she has been documenting the changes in her country, with a particular focus on young people, women and the intimate sphere. Starting out as a photojournalist, she has gradually broadened her practice, combining documentary photography, personal archives, family photographs and staged images.

A guest at this 17th edition of the Planches Contact Festival, which is dedicated to ‘Generations’, the Iranian photographer – a member of Magnum Photos – will look back on more than twenty years of work and how her perspective has evolved amidst her country’s upheavals. A story that also intersects with that of her family: before her, her great-uncle and then her grandfather were already photographing Iran and their loved ones.

A discussion centred on a remarkable career, where personal, family and collective histories intertwine through photography.

The talk will be followed by a book-signing session.