"In Discordia, Saman presents the unfolding of long and complex photographic sequences, absent of captions, an unexpected and less straightforward journalistic representation of the Arab Spring. The book includes a series of photo collages, created by the Dutch-Iranian artist Daria Birang from Saman’s photographs, grainy cut-outs exploring the repetition of human gestures and theatrics that Saman saw time after time during the events.
Discordia utilises various artistic approaches to photographic material; double-page spreads, isolated images, provocative two-image comparisons, juxtapositions and the collages. Presented as such, the book builds a visual representation of Saman’s up-close experience with the events taking place around him. The photographs are often ambiguous, depicting fleeting moments on the periphery of the more dramatic events that Saman photographed for editorial publications. Discordia instead presents people gathered in conference, protests on the street, objects and the continuation of day-to-day life amidst violence and uncertainty. The result is a personal comment on the complex nature of this period, and the ever-blurring line between victim and perpetrator."
