Islands’ haunting portrayal

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.”

It’s a familiar saying. But on the islands of the Strait of Hormuz, between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, people believe the winds possess someone, making them unwell. The only remedy is a ritual “involving incense, music and movement, in which a hereditary cult leader speaks with the wind through the afflicted patient in order to negotiate its exit”.

Hoda Afshar is a Melbourne-based Iranian photographer, whose 2018 prize-winning portrait of Kurdish-Iranian refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochani brought her work to the attention of the wider public. Surprising, eloquent and combining elements of theatre and documentary, Hoda’s photography can be found in private and public collections throughout Australia, including the Art Gallery of WA. The islands and their inhabitants as shaped by winds are the dual subject of Hoda’s latest photographic book, Speak the Wind (MACK, $50).

The rocky dessicated terrain’s colours, textures and undulations. Strange (to us) figures, often isolated from the landscape, clad in sometimes-colourful cloth but which is always textured and undulating, shot in harsh light, their faces fully or partially obscured by a tree branch, ‘hand mask’ or simply turned away from the camera. Anthropomorphic rock formations evoking the same shrouded figures.

It’s a haunting story, and haunting photographs, many in black and white, some complemented by line drawings — themselves recalling the twisted branches portrayed in other photographs — by the islanders. Strange to experience in a world where the threat of airborne disease is more present than ever.