Mothers of Martyrs (Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography)

These photographs form part of the Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography. This is an Art Fund initiative for the British Museum and V&A and the broad aim is to create a world-class capsule collection of major names and emerging talents in photography from the Middle East (whether living in the region or in diaspora), from 1900 to today. The Art Fund has given the two museums grants over £150,000 for the collection and additional support for the tour of the collection. Mothers of Martyrs is a poignant series of double portraits in which mothers hold framed portraits of their sons who died in the Iran-Iraq war. Some of the fallen soldiers look remarkably young, and as Tavakolian notes, the mothers ‘are getting older, but their boys will always stay the same age.Â’