Statement/In Between

Of all the departures and separations that connect human life to the darker dimensions of existence, the departures of recent years tell a different story. They speak of hope and disillusionment within a shared homeland whose history and cultural imagination have long been shaped by ideals of integrity, joy, cultivation, and poetry.

When words such as homeland, roots, migration, future, prosperity, dream, longing, farewell, waiting, return, and reunion gather together, they seem to circulate endlessly through the spaces of airports and terminals—acquiring meaning, only to lose it again.

In Between is about those who leave and those who remain behind. Those who say goodbye and return home. Those suspended between the anticipation of reunion and the sorrow of separation. It is about brief embraces and smiles that never quite emerge. About tears held back for the sake of the future, gathering at the edge of the eyes before being quietly denied. It is about scents entrusted to memory, about gazes fixed upon a terminal hall where dreams and nightmares coexist. It is about the fear of farewell standing silently before us, awakening memories of previous departures. It is about a strange and familiar feeling moving through the crowd of companions and waiting families, drifting along the harsh columns and polished surfaces of the airport.

Imam Khomeini International Airport is, in a sense, exactly what it was destined to be: a place of cold light, glass partitions, and fleeting moments of farewell. Here, dreams and disappointments seem to advance only as far as the departure gates. They pause behind the glass, looking through it, gradually shedding their certainty and dissolving into ambiguity.

The departures of these years tell a different story.