In Between

In Between is a collection about us, about those moments when life appears to continue on the surface, while something inside us stops for a few seconds or a few minutes. These images draw close to our lived experience as Iranians away from home, where geographical distance neither lessens pain nor quiets anxiety. What is happening to our compatriots across the world reaches our everyday lives constantly through news and images, holding us in a suspended state.

We stand in a condition in which ordinary, unmediated life is no longer possible for us. A part of our being is always elsewhere, suspended between here and there, between life and news, between carrying on and enduring. This collection is an attempt to register that shared condition: living in the midst of grief, anxiety, and a suspension inseparable from the fate of our people.

At the heart of this condition lies a heavier reality: ongoing repression, violence, displacement, and the suffering many of our compatriots continue to endure across different places and circumstances. And yet In Between is not only a narrative of exhaustion; it is also an effort to hold on to hope. Hope for freedom, for dignity, and for the possibility that, regardless of political orientation, we may preserve the boundaries of humanity and ethics, and not forget one another’s suffering.

This collection was created with the use of artificial intelligence, and its figures are not real people. Even so, that distance from actual individuals takes nothing away from the reality of the experience it addresses, because what these images represent is not the life of any one specific person, but a shared condition, a collective feeling, and a lived truth that many of us recognize and live with.

The base price of this collection is set at $3, though you are welcome to choose any other amount you wish to pay. All proceeds from the sale of this collection will go toward humanitarian and supportive efforts for compatriots across the world. I hope to be able to extend this support to different communities and circumstances wherever it is needed. By purchasing this collection, you will receive high-resolution versions of the works in a ZIP file and will be directly contributing to this effort. This option is especially intended for friends who may not be able to send direct support themselves and would still like to help in this way.

Dedicated to Negin, who these days, in addition to all the other hardships, also endures me.

Bahram Rameh