The monumental Tehran 2006 is a metaphorical study of isolation, displacement, and social upheaval. Inspired in part by contemporary Iranian cinema, it casts ordinary people as themselves but directed in their placement, attitude, and movement. The scene was photographed to look like a wide-angle shot in a film, which resulted in a panoramic view that was achieved through digital "stitching." Shot in a residential area on the outskirts of Tehran, the setting suggests a society without a functioning infrastructure: there are no streetlights or, for that matter, streets. Even the omnipresent billboard with its iconic images of Iran’s revolutionary leadership seems incapable of imposing order or direction; its text suggests an intentional irony: "We will continue [on] the path of the imam and martyrs of the revolution."

Born in Tehran, Mitra Tabrizian lives and works in London. She has exhibited and published widely in major international museums, including her 2008 solo exhibition at the Tate Britain. Her subject matter is both Western and Iranian and addresses a broad range of topics, especially social displacement and alienation, through disturbing (and often staged) photographic tableaux.

• Komaroff, Linda. Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.

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• "Acquistions." Canvas: Art and Culture from the Middle East and Arab World 11, no. 1 (2015): 92-101.