LINDA & REZA NADJI – NEGATIVES
WOMEN’S MUSEUM WIESBADEN
In the work “Negatives”, the sibling couple Linda and Reza Nadji show negatives of passport photographs from the archive of the Tehran photo studio Nadji, which was founded by their father in the 1940s. The archive contains around 38,000 photographs taken during the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the following 8 years of the Iran-Iraq war.
Some of the negatives are stacked on a wooden shelf and in bags, and some of them are spread out on a light box to show the contents of the archive that has been found. Framed contact prints of five of the portraits hang on the wall. The laboratory situation encourages us to deal with the paradox that passport photos are perceived as neutral — against the background that they are, however, also individually charged.
Linda and Reza Nadji go one step further by emphasising the loss of personality and individuality within an unfree ideological system through the framing of selected portraits. The appreciation of the individuals — in contrast to the seemingly careless objects of the installation — creates a moment of awe in the contemplation of the passport photos that are believed to be neutral.
Reza Nadji. Born 1978 in Tehran. Lives and works in Berlin. He studied photography at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts with Jörg Winde and as a scholarship holder at the Parsons School of Design in New York. He is a prizewinner of “gute aussichten” and has exhibited at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and the MAKK in Cologne. In Berlin, he founded the “IFB Institute for Photographic Education” and has been a guest lecturer at Utah State University and the University of Nuevo Leon.
Linda Nadji. Born in Tehran in 1972. Lives and works as an artist in Cologne. She studied object design at the FH Aachen and free art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she graduated in 2011 as a master student of Hubert Kiecol. Exhibitions at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Kunstverein Sundern, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Museum Haus Lange Haus Esters Krefeld, among others. She has received several awards and scholarships.
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