Not Yet Gone

Shiva Zahed Gallery in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, presents Not Yet Gone, a group exhibition of seven Iranian artists, from 18 September to 7 November 2026. Kimia Askarian, Sina Boroumandi, Shahin Esfandiari, Rana Heidarzade, Alborz Kazemi, Omid Mehdizadeh and Arya Tabandehpoor all start from the photograph. On show are prints on paper and cotton, cut and folded sheets, woven images, and pictures held in translucent resin.

The exhibition draws on hauntology, the idea named by Jacques Derrida and later developed by the critic Mark Fisher. It describes how futures that never arrived keep pressing on the present. Here that thought is turned towards the camera image. Instead of treating a photograph as proof of a past moment, each artist handles it as unstable material that can still change.

Esfandiari and Askarian work on the act of looking. Esfandiari lets natural forms melt into colour, light and haze, so his pictures sit somewhere between photography and painting. Askarian stretches a single exposure through movement and time, and her landscapes and buildings break down into rhythm and colour. Mehdizadeh prints on cotton, then stains, abrades and tints the cloth with natural pigments. Boroumandi cuts and bends photographic paper until the print becomes a sculpture. Kazemi slices images apart and reassembles them, so that what is missing counts as much as what remains.

Two further artists take the image into space. Tabandehpoor takes pictures apart and weaves the strips back together, so the surface turns into a grid of crossings. Heidarzade suspends photographs inside translucent resin forms that alter as light and viewers move around them. Taken together, the exhibition treats the photograph as something open and unfinished rather than a closed record. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 7pm and on Sunday from 12pm to 7pm.