AMIR SALEHI - EXPOSURE emerging photographers showcase

Soldiers Coming Home

During the Iran-Iraq war, a center called Martyrs' Ascension Headquarters was established to identify the victims of the war. Anonymous victims who were not identified in the provinces were sent to the headquarters to make the identification in Tehran. After the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 598, which marked the end of the war, a group was sent by the Iranian government to the war-stricken areas to search for and find the missing. Searching for body parts of the soldiers has been in progress for many years and in various places in the south and west of Iran and abroad in Iraq and has continued until today. In the Ascension Headquarters of Tehran Martyrs, the body parts of many of the war victims are being delivered to their families after 30 years, and they are buried in different parts of Iran. Later, with the start of the Syrian civil war and Iran's military presence there, this place remained a place for families to hand over the bodies of those killed in the Syrian war, and now for years, the stories of the war in this country have no end.

BIOGRAPHY

Amir Salehi (he/him) is an Iranian photographer based in Calgary, Canada. He completed his bachelor's in photojournalism in Tehran and began his career professionally as a photojournalist and documentary photographer in 2013, and since then, he has covered and witnessed many political and social events in Iran.

He uses photography as a medium to explore the role of politics and religion in people's life. Through his photographs, he tries to explore critical events and affairs to present a fair and genuine story to the audience. He believes photographers are the narrators of human history today, and historians will answer the historical questions of the future with photographs.