Live To Win

There is a cold wind blowing along the long boulevard, as i disembark from the bus which has brought me to the far western suburbs of Mashhad, one of Shia' Islam's holiest cities. The streets are wide, with scattered shops and barred windows. It is a friday, the holy day in Islamic countries, and naturally nost businesses are closed. I stand on the corner and zip my leather jacket closed to the collar, waiting for my friend made from a tenous internet connection to arrive as promised. He soon appears, leading his little brother by the hand. He has invited me for lunch at his parents house, and we make out way through streets populated by undecorated yellow brick buildings, sparse winter trees, and grey skies. I feel that i have somehow entered a different Iran from the bustling city centre of Mashhad, or maybe this is in fact the true face of the city, just as the outer suburbs of Melbourne can give you more perspective on the demographics of a place than it's urban hear...

There's something beautiful about comics - the way they freeze and crystalize moments of crisis like nothing else can. The spastic jump of objects knocked from a table as a body is hurled through a window. The look of awe on a face as something epic is revealed before it's beholder.  What is the way without artifice to capture the moments and places and scenes of life in this city that seduce with their temporary brilliance. It's difficult to avoid the (capitalist) logic of progress while documenting a time - the implicit idea that all things must/will develop and grow bigger, firmer, more exposed to the appreciation of a wider audience, so that we can look back with feigned respect to when they were small and "real". Appreciation here has a financial ring to it.  Placing a moment into a sellable capsule must inevitably starve and kill off the creative vibrant energy which made it burn so bright in the first place. Instead I seek a lasting means for admiring that...