Location
In the summer of 2008, Babak Salari and Diana Ivanova, traveled to nine villages in Northwest Bulgaria where they photographed and interviewed the most elderly residents (who nowadays represent the majority of people in the region). Motivated by their personal experiences, Babak and Diana contemplated the political changes that followed the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989. Bela Rechka reminded Babak of his grandparents’ village in Iran, a home he can no longer return to. While Diana’s return to Bela Rechka was a step towards understanding her roots and appreciate her late mother’s fear of change after the turbulent times of 1989. They hope that this book will serve to advocate for these people living in one of the poorest regions of the European Union.
BIOGRAPHY Babak Salari is a Montreal-based photographer and educator who chronicles lives at the margins of society. His documentary projects include: Iranian artists in exile; matriarchal, indigenous communities in Mexico; and gays and transvestites in Cuba. Recently, he documented those displaced and brutalized by war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. His interest in photography began as a teenager in his native Iran. At the age of twenty-one, his political activities resulted in his imprisonment for six months by the Khomeini regime. During a temporary release, he fled to Pakistan and, a year later, arrived in Canada where he resumed his study and practice of photography.
His new documentary work Traumas and Miracles: Portraits of Northwestern Bulgaria deals with the sense of disorientation, loss, pain, and isolation. Babak's work has been exhibited internationally including: National Art Gallery of Sofia, Bulgaria, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, and Centro Historico in Merida, Mexico, and published in several magazines. His four main publications Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories, Remembering the People of Afghanistan, My Street Cuban Stories, and Traumas and Miracles: Portraits from Northwestern Bulgaria, were published by Janet 45 in Bulgaria in 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively. He has received many awards including a Gold Addy from the American Ad Federation in 2004 for his work Locating Afghanistan. For more information:
www.babaksalari.com and babaksalari.com/blog
Doors open at 6:45 - No charge -
Sorry, not wheelchair accessible Tasty refreshments (non-alcoholic) and Zatoun oliveoil+za'atar dipping.
