Living in Two Times in Iran

When viewing an object, a photograph, or a painting, you have one advantage that the artist of the object didn’t, the time difference between when the object was created and now.

The photographs taken by the Iranian artist Bahman Jalali with assistance from his wife Rana Javadi in January 1979 during the Iranian Islamic revolution, currently in the exhibition titled ‘Living in Two Times’ at the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution couldn’t have been better timed for today’s situation. I was especially intrigued by the photograph of young women sitting on the hood of the car and protesting. It’s not much different than the protests today.

These photos remind me of George Orwell’s novel ‘Animal Farm’. Orwell wrote that novel as a parody of the communist regime in the Soviet Union. Whether the ideology of the ruling class is (superficially) anchored in communism, religiosity

or right-wing nationalism, the ultimate objective remains the same, the control of power for the benefit of the small ruling class at the great expense of the larger society.