An Overview of the Transformation of the Concept of Photography in Iran through Political Discourses based on the Discursive Institutionalism Theory

This paper attempts to investigate the evolution of the concept of photography in Iran in light of changing political discourses. Focusing on the role of ideas and organizations, the study uses discursive institutionalism as a methodological approach. Photography as a modern phenomenon associated with the rise of the middle class can hardly be detached from socio-political circumstances. Photography, which arrived in Iran only 3 years after its invention in France, has always played an important role in major historical moments such as the Constitutive and Islamic Revolutions. During the Qajar dynasty, Shah Nasser-al-din’s obsession with art and photography led to the establishment of the first royal photography studio. During the Pahlavi era, with its modernization agenda, photography found its way into magazines and newspapers as the best means of advertising. However, it was hardly considered an artistic form. In the 1960s, one could see photo exhibitions by photographers such as Ahmad Aali, Ebrahim Hashemi, and Maryam Zandi, who considered photography a form of self-expression or an art form. However, in the mid-1970s, political and social upheavals changed the concept of photography from art to a revealing document and a political weapon. One could refer to the photographs of Kaveh Golestan showing working class and sex workers in the whore houses in the south of Tehran.