Loss of Our Identity

Sadegh Tirafkan explores the challenges of Iranian youth in a modern world through his works of mixed media and photography. Tirafkan took pictures of modern Iranian young adults with pieces of their face covered by drawings representing Iran’s rich history and culture. Thus, he has explored the loss of culture and therefore identity of Persian youth in the face of an increasingly materialistic world overpowered by technology, media and pop culture; “destructive culture” according to Tirafkan

Loss of our Identity #1 is a coloured photograph of a young Iranian man with ear buds around his neck.  Essentially all we can see in this photograph is the young man’s lower half of his face as well as shoulders because the upper half is covered by drawings. The drawings that are covering the upper part of the young man’s head reflect drawings of Iran’s rich culture and history. Moving across the page horizontally are hundreds of men on horseback ready for war. These men on horses represent the Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1970’s. 

Since the drawn out pictures of the men at war are covering half of this photo, we cannot see the eyes of the young man underneath. Without being able to see the eyes of an individual they are verily unidentifiable. The eyes of a person are curtail when it comes to a person’s identity, showing that the individual in this photo a slowly losing his identity. The ear buds around the man’s neck were placed there on purpose to show a strong juxtaposition between the struggles between the remembrances of history of the past on the upper part of the face, with entertainment in contemporary times on the lower half of the faces.

Our face is essentially our identity; at least as a physical level. More often than not, covering a piece of an individual’s face makes it much harder for them to be identified, which therefore takes a way a pieces of their identity.

Tirafkan’s photography in his series, “loss of our identity” greatly reflects his concern with contemporary Persian society as well as his own desires to connect with his cultural roots. As a young teenager Tirafkan witnessed a tragic war between Iran and Iraq during the 1970’s.

According to Tirafkan, “The fist thing war kills is culture. Governments cut budgets for culture but have the means for the satellites that beam garbage directly into peoples’ homes.” Unfortunately during and after the war in Iran, government spending was cut in many different areas, which included cuts in the budget for culture (Collections: Arts of the Islamic world). More money was being spent on satellites for entertainment, which caused a significant loss of culture among the Iranian youth.

An individual’s culture is something very significant to a person’s identity; it is like a tattoo, something you cannot get rid of; so to be ignorant in your own culture is no different than being ignorant in your own identity.  

I agree with Trafkan’s message and also believe that his works were not only meant to send a message to Iranian people, but also to people of all cultures. Through reflecting on the Loss of our Identity series I have come to believe that the increase in modern technology and media pop culture, the more a community loses their own cultural identity, what do you guys think? 

Untitled, provided by Fadia Omar

As an artist, Tirafkan's photography really helped inspire me to reflect on my own cultural identity. Through Tirafkan's inspiration I have tried to embrace my own cultural identity through my art as well. I couldn't really find an image of Tirafkan's work that didn't have copy right restrictions, so here is one of my own Tirafkan inspired paintings (No one likes a blog without pictures)