Tahmineh Monzavi is a renowned Iranian photographer born in 1988 in Tehran. She began her professional career in 2005 after studying photography at Azad Art and Architecture University.
Tahmineh Monzavi's early work focused on marginalised communities in Iran, notably women struggling with drug addiction and the transgender community. Her approach often blends documentary photography with artistic elements, offering a raw and intimate look into the lives of her subjects.
She attracted international attention with her series "All About Me: Nicknamed Crown Giver", which explores the absurdity and pressure of beauty standards in Iran. The series was inspired by an ancient beauty contest called "Spring Girl", held in Iran before the Islamic revolution of 1979. The work critiques how these ideals of beauty persist in contemporary Iranian society despite the cultural changes that followed the revolution.
Her career was put to the test in 2012, when she was arrested during a politically sensitive period in Iran. The trauma of her imprisonment and the two-year break that followed profoundly affected her artistic direction. During this period, she made a transition to staged photography, creating powerful visual narratives that continue to address social issues.
Tahmineh Monzavi's work has been exhibited widely, including at the Musée d'art moderne in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and various galleries in Rome, Vienna, Boston and Seoul. Recent projects include "Past Continuous", which documents the ruins of historic architecture in Iran and Afghanistan, and "Red Soil, Cold Soil", which contrasts the landscapes of the Persian Gulf and the Arctic.
Tahmineh Monzavi's photographs continue to address themes of identity, beauty and cultural heritage, making her an important figure in contemporary Iranian art.
Monzavi received the Sheed Award for excellence in social documentary photography in 2011. Her work has been featured in a number of prestigious publications such as the New York Times, Internazionale, Paris Match, the British Journal of Photography, Le Figaro, L'Oeil de la Photographie and Elle Magazine. She is featured in "La Photographie Iranienne" published by LOCO, in the catalogue of the exhibition entitled "Iran, Unedited History 1960 - 2014" published by the Musée d'Art Moderne (Paris), in "Iran 38" published by Editions Textuel and in a book entitled "A self-torn apart" published by the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP) and Galerie Eric Dupont 2022 and the pictet award book 2022 "fire".
She received international recognition with the film About the Salesman (2018) , A film about a film which won two trophies for Best Actor and Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017.