From Award to Museum: Hannah Darabi's Prize Winning Project Goes on View at Photo Elysée

“Why Don’t You Dance?”, a new solo exhibition by Iranian photographer and artist Hannah Darabi, is on view at Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 26 June to 1 November 2026. Born in Tehran in 1981 and now based in Paris, Darabi studied at the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Fine Arts before continuing her artistic practice in France. Over the past decade, she has become known for her research-based projects exploring collective memory, popular culture, visual archives, and modern Iranian history. Her previous accolades include the Bernd and Hilla Becher Award (2022) and the Prix de la Photo Madame Figaro (2023), while her publication Rue Enghelab: The Revolution Through Books, Iran 1979–1983 is considered one of her landmark works.

The exhibition is the outcome of Darabi’s winning project for the 2025 Prix Elysée, one of the world’s leading photography awards dedicated to supporting the production of unpublished photographic projects by mid-career artists. Organized biennially by Photo Elysée, the award grants CHF 5,000 to each of eight shortlisted artists for project development, followed by a final prize of CHF 80,000 awarded to one winner to realize, publish, and exhibit their project.

Awarded the 2025 Prix Elysée, Why Don’t You Dance? combines photography, moving images, archival materials, and historical objects to examine the history of popular dance in Iran through the lives and legacies of  iconic performers:. The project explores how dance has functioned as a form of cultural resilience, identity, and self-expression—particularly in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution and within the Iranian diaspora. It also reflects on the relationship between archives, memory, and resistance.

Structured across three interconnected chapters, the exhibition brings together photographs, films, documents, and archival materials to connect Iran’s past with its present and its diaspora. Accompanying the exhibition, the publication Why Don’t You Dance?, released by Kodoji Press, further expands Darabi’s long-term research into the visual and cultural history of dance in Iran. The exhibition remains on view at Photo Elysée through 1 November 2026.

Cover & Slider Images: 

• www.elysee.ch