TEHRAN -- Two exhibitions in Tehran this month take markedly different approaches to the city’s visual culture, with one looking back through photographs of the capital’s past and the other drawing on Persian artistic traditions to create contemporary work.
As part of Tehran Cultural Week, Tehran, Beyond the Frames is presenting photographs of the capital’s earlier years at Sarv Gallery, offering visitors a visual journey through aspects of Tehran’s urban history and collective memory.
The exhibition runs from October 4 to 10 at Sarv Gallery, located at Sarv Cultural Center on Vali Asr Street, beside the northern side of Saei Park. 
According to the Tehran Cultural Organization, the exhibition focuses on images of “yesterday’s Tehran” and seeks to reconnect contemporary audiences with scenes and memories preserved in the city’s photographic record.
The second exhibition moves in the opposite direction, using historical visual references as the basis for contemporary experimentation.
Visual artist Nazanin Samet is presenting Lotus, a solo exhibition at Jura Gallery in Tehran. The exhibition brings together calligraphy-painting works in acrylic on canvas with iron sculptures, limited-edition silver jewelry and photography.
Samat’s work is rooted in contemporary calligraphy-painting, or Naqqashi-Khat, a practice that combines Iranian calligraphic traditions with modern visual composition. Her earlier exhibition Beyond Vision at Cama Gallery similarly explored the meeting point between traditional Iranian calligraphy and contemporary abstraction.
For Lotus, Samet revisits the lotus motif through references to Achaemenid art, linking the flower to ideas of life, renewal, grandeur and peace. Layered color and light, overlapping forms and broad brushwork create an atmospheric
 visual language intended to encourage contemplation.
Samet, born in 1985, has worked professionally in calligraphy-painting and contemporary calligraphy since 2018. Her work has appeared in group exhibitions in Iran and abroad, while her previous solo exhibitions include Beyond Vision and Nava-ye Parvaz (The Sound of Flight) at Cama Gallery.