Morteza Niknahad

Morteza Niknahad was born in 1984 in Bandar Abbas, on Iran’s southern coast, where he still lives. He first made short films, then returned to photography in 2014. His staged photographs draw on personal stories and the myths of his native region. In Big Fish, he turns his mother’s long depression into a large fish inspired by a local legend; the series won the Managing Mental Health category of the Wellcome Photography Prize in 2021. Silk Road Gallery presented Big Fish online in 2021 and showed his work at Paris Photo in 2021 and 2022. His photographs have been exhibited in France, Germany, China, Sweden and Canada, and published in The Guardian, Le Monde and Creative Review.