Karim Mottaghi

Series Winner · Open Call 2023

Karim Mottaghi

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, a grim specter swept across the globe, leaving no country unscathed. While first-world nations implemented stringent measures to combat the virus, the situation was markedly different in some developing countries, especially Iran. Heightened by limited medical resources, international sanctions, and political turmoil, Iran faced an unusually devastating impact of the pandemic. From April, 2020, until October, 2022, Karim Mottaghi witness firsthand the unfolding tragedy at Wadi-Rahmat Cemetery, the largest burial ground in northwest Iran, located in Tabriz, a city known for its harsh winters and sweltering summers.

There, the photographer not only captured these moments but also participated in the sacred rituals of bathing and burying the deceased. Loved ones, acquaintances, and fellow citizens, all were seen through the intimate prism of loss. During the peak of the pandemic, the narrator’s mother would muse: “In these cold and snowy days of Tabriz, death visits our homes without knocking. Death, sooner or later, will come and look at me with your eyes. If death comes to me, put me in the grave yourself, gently shake my shoulder, so that I can get used to the grave and sleep peacefully, just as I shook you many times in your childhood to calm down.”Her prophecies came true and death came to visit. Mottaghi buried her, fulfilling her last wishes by gently shaking her shoulder.