My name is Sammaneh Pourshafighi. I’m a queer, Muslim, Iranian-born artist working primarily out of Melbourne and the Gold Coast. I work across a variety of media including photography. My creative practice often addresses world building, the relationship between bodies and environments, diasporic experiences and acts of transcendence. I’m also hereditary witch with a strong affinity to the character of Toad from Wind in the Willows.

Historically, my work as been rooted in self-portraiture and I had started to experiment with what would happen when the lens was pointed outwards. I had been developing alter ego workshops with different groups of people for a little while and had amassed a selection of portraits. I felt like the concept was strong coupled with my own technical and aesthetic skills.

I pitched the idea to the team at PHOTO 2024 who loved it. From there, curator Brendan McCleary and myself worked together to develop the idea further ultimately working with a group of young actors from Green Tree Acting Studio. We spent a day having a hands-on, participatory workshop playing with costuming, make up, props and wigs with the goal of identifying and expressing their individual alter egos. Essentially, we spent a day playing dress up, clowning around, coming up with exciting ideas, and then taking amazing portraits. I have the privilege of being an artist which I think is just the coolest job in the world.

My works were all portraits of young people, many of whom were experimenting and trying out new ideas for the first time. I’m genuinely so proud of all the portraits we made together. Adolescence is a stage of life where people are often very self-conscious, trying to establish their sense of identity and self-esteem. I was absolutely impressed with all of the sitters’ abilities to lean into the project and pull out an alter ego from inside. I am sincerely, immensely proud of every single image I produced in this work.

I do have a special soft spot for one particular image in the series however where the sitter is wearing these holographic round glasses and there is just an absolute clash of colours and patterns going on around them. Its dizzyingly psychedelic and I’m proud of the compositional aspects.

I find inspiration is so many places. Where to start? Perhaps it’s best to say that inspiration often starts in relationships especially the relationships between myself and the sitter. When I’m taking a portraits my job is to not only document a person’s exterior but to also draw out a deeper, inner quality and capture that. The best portraits simultaneously capture the personality and physical attributes of the subject.

I draw a lot of inspiration from cinematic references like early silent films, the works of Sergei Parajanov, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brian De Palma’s Scarface and costume designer Eiko Ishioka. A more general list of inspiration would include people and things such as Pierrot clowns, Persian and Muslim culture, tropical plants, bitchy women with big hair, men with moustaches, rich saturated colours, graphic patterns, angels, djinn, dreams, fears, desire, play, archival family photographs, aliens, lizards, monsters, memes, medieval armour. Inspiration exists in everything if one wants to find it.

I hope people take away the importance of play and fun as a circuit breaker from the challenges present in our day to day world. I hope they think I document people in situations with a sense of sincerity. I hope my audiences sees something tremendous, dazzling, beautiful in my work and it breaks their hearts wide open.

One cannot put into practice anything that the mind cannot first conceive. Ideation is the start of action. Seeing happens in the imagination as well as with our physical eyes. PHOTO 2024’s theme speaks to the importance of the power of the mind to draw from the past and present to manifest the future. As a witch, I also believe in prophetic visions and magic.

I shoot in both analogies and digital formats. I am never not impressed with the fact that one can make very good quality films and images on their phones. How incredible that there’s that much potential in a device one carries around in their pocket! I’m definitely not an elitist regarding how images are made, making art should be accessible to everyone. I also play a lot with AI generating software to experiment pushing the boundaries of my art. Some I like, some are considered failures but at least new processes are being tried out. Who wants to stagnate? There’s a lot of potential to using emerging technologies in art. I don’t believe AI will replace artists, nor should artists rely on it too much. There are definitely valid concerns surrounding AI technology and data collection but to completely dismiss its capabilities may limit new approaches to one’s practice.

I love photography and photographers. We’re all observers of the world first most and I’m draw to that. There’s a million things I want to see. J Davies’ work is so beautiful and honest to me, Mousa Lamrabat’s work influences my own a lot. Adam Ferguson’s eye on Australian-gothicism is stunning. Amos Gerbhardt’s play with light is so special. Ayman Kaake, Daine Singer, Jill Orr, Nan Goldin; Honestly, it’s an outstanding program and my goal is to see as much as possible.

I love this question so much but it’s a challenge to select only one song. My picks would be Jericho by Iniko because it has this phenomenal cosmic, extra-terrestrial, science fiction quality to it and it speaks about transcendental self-actualisation.

She’s A Rainbow by The Rolling Stones would be my other psychedelic selection.

I don’t know if I should be giving advice to a mentally ill child.

My crush Max (who’ll be reading this) should ask me out on a date.