Staged reporting

Many of you probably already know Dide, the online magazine curated by Mohammadreza Mirzaei and devoted to contemporary Iranian photography. Over the months I have been collaborating on more than one occasion with Dide, writing texts for some of the 15 issues released since its birth. My most recent contribution is in the latest issue, featuring the work of Reza Aramesh, an Iranian-born artist living in London whose work is mostly made of restagings of iconic news photograph inside stately homes and museums around the UK.
Needless to say his work rang quite a few bells inside me, due to all the issues it raises about the language of news photography, and so I thank Mohammadreza for asking me to write some thoughts about those images.