Künstlergespräch mit Pooya Sedighi Mournani und Hanar Hupka

The project *It’s not about nothing* explores artistic practices in the field of documentary art across two episodes and both of the GfZK’s exhibition venues. The works presented here examine image archives as sites of resistance and as a means of engaging with buried histories.

Pooya Sedighi Mournani works with images of defining events in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. These images come from government sources, the internet, and social media. Mournani zooms in on details, selects image fragments, and transfers them via laser printing onto substrates such as aluminum or glass. He extracts images—such as those of crowds, protests, violence, and destruction—from their original context. From his ongoing collection of images emerges a speculative archive that makes no claim to completeness or truth. It challenges us to critically examine the images that surround us: What do we see? What does the perspective of a photograph reveal about its creator? Was the photographer part of the crowd, part of the system, or an outside observer? When does an image serve an official historical narrative? And when is it a documentary tool of resistance? Another series features portraits of Mournani’s mother. He photographs her when he visits her in Iran. To him, she is both an important companion and a witness to her time.