Statement:

O Gallery presents “Assembly of Joy”, a series of photographs and printed texts by Nastaran Fotouhi (b. 1984 Tehran, Iran). 

Continuing her ongoing exploration of family photo albums, in this series Fotouhi works within a local yet deeply personal context, focusing on gatherings and social events. 

Here, she works through an interplay of photography and writing, continuing a broader, cross-media practice in which the specific materials change from one collection to the next, while the underlying collage-like methodology remains consistent. 

Drawing from collective memory, the artist sources images from strangers’ family photo albums, treating them not as fixed documents but as mutable fragments open to reinterpretation.

In “Assembly of Joy”, Fotouhi shifts her focus toward the aesthetic presence of fruit within Iranian culture. 

Presented as close-up still lifes, the images intentionally exclude human figures to evoke gatherings that are felt rather than seen.

Together, the photographs and texts form an open-ended experience, one that invites viewers to imagine presence through selective visuals.