Wet Ground
Wet Ground, is a long term project by British-Iranian artist and photographer Aria Shahrokhshahi. This work is the product of his unique experiences living and volunteering in Ukraine throughout 2019 to the present. Shahrokhshahi’s profound emotional connection with the land and its people has been evolving since his initial visit. The artist provides his photographic documentation from a place of curiosity, compassion, and dedication to social mobility. The images though balanced are charged with raw, energetic matter.
A sidewalk grocery stand presents its bountiful goodness: hiding a female seller in the back: a ballerina frozen in the centre of the frame : wrestlers fighting. Half-naked club scenes.
Shahrokhshahi’s images are a departure from the standard visual vocabulary of war. Acknowledging complexity but not ignoring immediate violent reality; focusing on the duality and complex poetic normality that exists within this time.
His portraits of young men are particularly captivating in the context of the changing landscape of masculinity in the country. Fuelled by compulsory military draft and prohibition of travel for men, and a growing number of women joining the army.
Conflicts don’t merely destroy buildings and bridges; they shake and steal the land that holds people’s memories, where they grew up, had their first kiss, or learned to play an instrument. With references of instability and sanctuary at the same time, the title Wet Ground is linked to that destruction and to the concept of something unstable and constantly shifting: just like the physical, social, and cultural landscape of a country going through a painful but historical transformation. It also comes from Aria’s experience of surviving a hard strike during his work of the medical evacuation of civilians from the frontline town of Siversk when he, and the crew survived because the ground was wet, failing correct detonation of the rocket.
Wet ground is not possible to build upon : the artist joined a group of his friends, Ukrainian volunteers rebuilding residential homes that had been damaged in de-occupied villages of the Chernihiv region in the summer of 2022.
Later, through print sales, Ukraine-related photography publications, and exhibitions, Aria has raised over £35,000 for volunteer groups and NGO’s he works with delivering a fresh take on what Cornell Capa’s idea of ‘concerned photography’ might look like in the 21st century.
To maintain an even more genuine connection to the country and affected residents, and as his work is amplified internally by the connections he makes with other people, he joined Base UA, an NGO based in frontline towns of Mykolaivka, Konstantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk.
There he hosted photography workshops, renovated a bomb shelter, and perhaps most importantly, is just there to listen to the kids, giving them space to feel heard and cared for.
The artist inherited his dedication to volunteering from his Iranian father : and a broader interest in people from his upbringing in an Iranian-British household.
‘In Iran, we go out of our way to ask about other people, to engage with them, to make them feel welcomed and comfortable,’ says Shahrokhshahi.
‘Photography became my passport; a way to be curious about other people, the social structures they create and live in.”
Photography became the way for him to make sense of the world around him.
Living in England, in working-class Nottingham as an Iranian, he had a feeling of never fitting in – a duality. “This duality has always been present in my work, and I think photography, for me, is a way to understand all those things.’
Wet Ground is no exception, as the work gently revolves around the duality of war yet shows the beauty of normality and ceaselessness of life, even amidst atrocities.
Ira Lupu
