Eyes Dazzle as they Search for The Truth

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Eyes Dazzle As They Search for The Truth [2022]

Amin Yousefi was born in 1996 in Abadan, Iran, and holds an MA in Photography from the University of Westminster. He lives and works as a writer, researcher, and image-based artist in London. He has participated in several group exhibitions and prizes, including recently being named a 2024 Foam Talent Award winner. His recent project, "Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth," was selected as a finalist of the Carte Blanche Awards at Paris Photo in 2022. It was subsequently shown with Ag Galerie at the Unseen Art Fair 2023 in Amsterdam. His work has been published in magazines such as Hapax and Aperture, with the article in which he interviewed three artists on "What It Means to Make Photographs as a Young Artist in Iran." Yousefi has also undertaken compelling commission works, including the project "Ruderal Acts, Gardening Beyond the Wall," showcased as part of the HerMAP Art Project at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium. He was also selected as an Ag Talent for his "Life, Death, and Other Similar Things" project in 2019, exhibited in a solo show at the Ag Galerie. Yousefi has an upcoming display in June 2024 with the Belfast Photo Festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A native of Abadan in the province of Khuzestan, Iran's most oil-rich region, and the scene of a bloody war with neighboring Iraq, Yousefi's work examines the event of photography through the socio-political aspect of the medium. His primary concern lies in the implications of the archive, exploring violence against protests in the Middle East enacted by the state and how the act of photography can conceptually mirror the structures of these relationships.

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Eyes Dazzle as they Search for The Truth [2022]

How could the sound of a 35mm camera shutter attract the attention of a protestor in a crowd? As if the photographer used a megaphone to say, “One, Two, Three, Cheese...“ and some participants gazed out of the atmosphere to stare at the camera. I want to find my suspects like a detective among the revolutionaries of Iran in 1978-1979. The Iranian revolution stands as a paramount milestone in the Middle East over the past five decades, exerting multifaceted ramifications that have reverberated throughout the region. This project highlights individuals who looked out from among the masses at a crucial moment in history and stared into the lens of a camera. The photographer is usually the one who is in control of the image being captured. The photographer chooses the mise-en-scène by choosing their position. The anticipated relationship has been reversed in these photographs, as the photographer was influenced by the crowds and the eyes that turned towards the camera. As if the subject and object had exchanged places. This reversal of roles had a significant impact, as the people themselves took on the task of capturing the image with their gaze rather than the camera turning towards them. Photographing through a magnifying loupe provided an allegory for extracting photographs of the revolution and bringing them to the present moment. The magnifying loupe acted as a bridge that connected me to the revolutionaries. It seems that their gaze has been waiting for my eyes for decades, filtering through a multitude of lenses and eyes before reaching me. They wanted to be recorded in history by a camera, and I tried to honor their desire for immortality.