The Captives

In The Captives, Babak Kazemi photographs trees struggling to survive among the concrete and buildings of Tehran. The trees become a metaphor for endurance: like people who stay rooted in their homeland, they hold on despite the walls closing in around them. Kazemi prints the images using gum bichromate, a nineteenth-century process, linking the early history of photography to a present-day concern: the loss of nature in the city.