iranabak
Özcan Ağaoğlu
National Geographic photographer Reza Deghati writes in the afterword to the book, “ … it had been years since such a sharp, accurate and elaborative viewpoint had grasped and challenged my mind, especially concerning a topic I am so familiar with.”
Deghati mentions “the unsettling period which is described as the country’s darkest hours of its history.” Yet Ağaoğlu also documents moments of tenderness and poetry, his charisma opening doors that would otherwise remain locked.
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The title of the book iranabak, a composite word urging one to “look at Iran” is by the writer Ece Temelkuran.
The high-contrast display typeface refers to the silhouettes of the women in black garments but also to the arabesques of Persian art and the fluidity of Arabic calligraphy.
The design bridges “the darkness” mentioned by Reza Deghati with Özcan’s upbeat attitude. The text is strictly constrained by rules abutting it on both sides, but the lines are thin and light. The green colour might refer to religion but it is a shade of green that belongs to springtime and to the future.
On the book cover, a tiny ornament reflects light in
an otherwise all-black ground.
Essay by Farhad Fakhrian. Afterword by Reza Deghati.
Printed in Turkish and English
in the same edition by Mas Matbaa in 2010.