IRAN 2026: A Chronicle

Collective exhibition on recent events in Iran
Photographers: Aslon Arfa, Fatemeh Behboudi, Morteza Nikoubazl, Mohsen Rezaei and Akbar Tavakkoli
Photo project coordinator: Aslon Arfa
Shahr-e Farang: Images from Thomas Dworzak Collection, edited by Alice Gabriner
Text: Originally written for a private gathering in London; presented without attribution at the writer’s request.
Additional text: Excerpts from Raha Nik-Andish’s blog, originally published by the London Review of Books. Raha Nik-Andish is the pseudonym of a writer who teaches art at a university in Iran.
Poster photograph: Jani Khatibi
Curated by: Damir Šagolj and Thomas Dworzak
Text design: Bojan Hadžihalilović
National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, July, 2026

This exhibition brings together several fragments that reached WARM through its members and friends during one extraordinary year in one extraordinary country. It does not claim to present a complete picture of Iran today, but rather a chronicle of a time still unfolding.

At the heart of the exhibition is a collective visual report by Iranian photojournalists working inside the country. Produced under difficult and often dangerous conditions, and within the realities and limitations of reporting from Iran today, these photographs document the war and its consequences as they were seen and experienced in 2026. The images are not presented as separate photographic essays, but as one shared chronicle.

The photographs are accompanied by excerpts from a text by Iranian writer Raha Nik-Andish, originally published by the London Review of Books. Written as a deeply personal reflection during the events of 2026, the text offers another perspective on the same moment in history. It appears alongside the photographs not as an explanation of them, but as another voice within the exhibition.

Alongside these photographs stands Shahr-e Farang, a traditional Iranian peep-show box. Once used to show distant places and stories, it now presents a sequence of images selected and edited by Alice Gabriner from Thomas Dworzak’s collection of material harvested from the internet that includes variety of images from the bloody protests earlier in the year, as well as the war itself, all taken from social media and the wider online world, offering another perspective on Iran in 2026.

The exhibition also features a text originally written for a private gathering of around twenty-five people in London. It is presented here in its original form, offering another personal reflection on the events of that year. This text inspired Bojan Hadžihalilović’s design for all the texts throughout the exhibition.

The soundscape is composed of songs selected by the same author.

These fragments create a chronicle of 2026.