“Between Our Walls” is a photographic research project curated by “Sogol & Joubeen Studio”. It narrates the story of a house in the northern part of the rapidly developing Tehran/Iran, in the late 1950s, built by a middle-class family member, an employee of the National Iranian Oil Company. His family resided many years in that house before they left Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They abandoned the house and all its objects in hopes of returning one day, a homecoming that never came through.
The core of this research project is a dialogue between architecture, interior design, domestic objects, publications, correspondence and the photo archive left by the family. Most things left were saved before the destruction of the house in 2012. That house symbolized the course of modernization and the radical changes in the Iranian lifestyle in the 1950s and 1960s, a transformation still resonates today.
Sogol & Joubeen Studio was awarded the Les Rencontres d’Arles 2022 Curatorial Research Fellowship for their project Between Our Walls. This recognition culminated in a photo and video exhibition at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2023, France.
Alongside the exhibition, a panel discussion on the theme of the “spirit of place” was held at Cour Fanton Arles, led by Baudouin Eschapasse from Le Point magazine. During this engaging dialogue, Sogol and Joubeen shared insights into the development of their project and reflected on their encounter with the house that serves as the focal point of “Between the Walls”.
