Abbas, 'Rioters burn a portrait of the Shah as a sign of protest against his regime. Tehran, December 1978', from the series 'IranDiary'

Abbas
Born Kash, Iran, 1944. Lives Paris, France
'Rioters burn a portrait of the Shah as a sign of protest against his regime. Tehran, December 1978', from the series 'IranDiary'
1978–9
Gelatin silver print
British Museum: 2010, 6034.4
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
Abbas@Magnum Photos, courtesy Magnum Gallery

Abbas is a veteran photojournalist who has been covering world events since the 1970s. He joined the Magnum photographic agency in 1981 and went on to serve as President from 1998 to 2001. His graphic depictions of the Iranian revolution are among his best-known works. They bear witness to dramatic events while acknowledging the power of the photographic image, as in this depicion of protestors burning a photograph of the Shah.

Mehraneh Atashi, 'Bodiless I', from the series 'Zourkhaneh Project' (House of Strength)

Mehraneh Atashi
Born Tehran, Iran, 1980. Lives Tehran
'Bodiless I', from the series 'Zourkhaneh Project (House of Strength)'
2004
Digital c-print
British Museum: 2099, 6035.1
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Mehraneh Atashi explores the relationship between photography and power in her ongoing investigation into the possibilities of self-portraiture. Her photographic series reveal lesser-known aspects of Iranian life.

This photograph shows the inside of a zurkhana, a traditional Iranian wrestling gym, in Tehran. The artist has explained that ‘tradition forbids the breath of women’ in the zurkhana. Atashi includes herself in the scene through a reflection in a mirror. This picture within a picture emphasises her incongruous presence in a place from which women are normally excluded.

Newsha Tavakolian, from the series 'Mothers of Martyrs'

Newsha Tavakolian
Born Tehran, Iran, 1981. Lives Tehran
From the series 'Mothers of Martyrs'
2006
Digital c-print
Museum no. E.357-2010
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Newsha Tavakolian started her career at the age of 16, as a junior photographer for the Iranian women’s daily Zan-e Rooz. She also worked with other reformist newspapers and by the early 1990s had established herself as one of Tehran’s few female photojournalists, working internationally and particularly focussing on women’s issues. She is a founder member of the EVE international collective of women photojournalists, established in 2006 and of Rawiya, a collective of women photographers from the Middle East, founded in 2011. Her series 'Mothers of Martyrs' shows elderly Iranian women holding framed photographs of their sons who died decades earlier in the Iran–Iraq war (1980–8). The double portraits attest to photography’s emotive power.

Abbas Kowsari, 'Halabche'

Abbas Kowsari
Born Tehran, Iran, 1970. Lives Tehran
'Halabche'
2003
Digital c-print
British Museum: 2009, 6031.1
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Abbas Kowsari began his career as a photojournalist for the Tehran Times in 1994 and is currently Senior Picture Editor for Shargh, a popular reformist title.

This photograph made in nothern Iraq presents a portrait within a portrait. The figure of a peshmerga (a Kurdish combatant) is tightly framed to exclude his face. Instead, the face of rock musician Bryan Adams, on the soldier’s T-shirt, fills a central portion of the composition. The faded black-and-white image is surrounded by saturated colours and brightly gleaming metal. The contrast reinforces the incongruity between warfare in Iraq and western pop culture.

Issa Touma, from the series 'Sufis: The day of al-Ziyara'

Issa Touma
Born Safita, Syria, 1962. Lives Aleppo, Syria
From the series 'Sufis: The day of al-Ziyara'
1995–2005
Gelatin silver print
Museum no. E.71-2011
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Issa Touma is a prominent figure in the Syrian art scene. Self-taught, he began his career as a photographer in the early 1990s. In 1996 he founded Le Pont Organisation and Gallery, an independent art organisation to promote freedom of expression and stimulate the local art scene through international events.

His series on the day of al-Ziyara documents an annual procession of Sufi pilgrims in northern Syria. Sufism is a mystical path within Islam. Touma photographed the event over the course of ten years, gradually gaining the trust of his subjects. The resulting images convey his sense of immersion in the festival and capture the fervour of the worshippers.

Mitra Tabrizian, 'Tehran 2006'

Mitra Tabrizian
Born Tehran, Iran.
Lives London, UK
'Tehran 2006'
2006
Digital c-print
Museum no. E.470-2008

Mitra Tabrizian examines what she calls 'the crisis of contemporary culture in both the West and the East', often expressing social displacement or alienation through disquieting and sometimes staged photographic tableaux. She works with non-professional models, ordinary people who play themselves, and photographs them all at once, without digital manipulation. Here a disparate group of people appear to go about everyday business in a residential area on the outskirts of Tehran. The surroundings suggest a society without a working infrastructure. There are no gardens, street lighting or proper roads. A metaphorical exploration of isolation and exile, this image also reflects a nation with mounting ideological and religious tensions.

Yto Barrada, 'Bricks (Briques)'

Yto Barrada
Born Paris, France, 1971. Lives Tangier, Morocco
'Bricks (Briques)'
2003/2011
C-print
Museum no. E.1132-2012
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Yto Barrada grew up in Paris and Tangier and studied in Paris and New York. Since 2006 she has directed the Cinématèque de Tanger, a cultural centre home to an archive of Maghrebi and Arabic film and video. Barrada’s hometown of Tangier is the subject of much of her work. In this view, recently constructed buildings in various states of completion are scattered across the hillsides. The pile of bricks in the foreground seems to parallel the haphazard nature of the surrounding building projects. The untidy man-made heap echoes the form of the natural hills in the background.

Waheeda Malullah, from the series 'Light'

Waheeda Malullah
Born Bahrain, 1978. Lives Bahrain
From the series 'Light'
2006
Inkjet print on rag paper
British Museum: 2010, 6031.2
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Waheeda Malullah uses playfulness and humour to explore social rules, and in particular the roles women play in Islamic society. In the series 'Light' she records a performance staged expressly for the camera. By lying down next to tombs in Bahrain she exaggerates the Shi'i Muslim custom of seeking blessing by touching the tombs of revered people. These stylised compositions are also studies of form, light and shadow.

Manal Al-Dowayan, 'I am an Educator'

Manal Al-Dowayan
Born Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 1973. Lives Dhahran
'I am an Educator'
2005–7
Gelatin silver print
British Museum: 2009, 6034.1
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Manal Al-Dowayan uses photography, text and installation to examine Saudi identity, and in particular the role of women in contemporary society. Working mainly in black and white photography, she also experiments with other media and techniques, often combining images with Arabic text. The sitter for 'I am an Educator' is a professor of English literature in Saudi Arabia. The phrase repeated on her slate means 'Ignorance is darkness'. The rest of this Arabic saying, 'Knowledge is light', is omitted.

Ahmed Mater, 'Magnetism II'

Ahmed Mater
Born Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, 1979. Lives Abha, Saudi Arabia
'Magnetism II'
2012
Photogravure
British Museum: 2012, 6018.1 to 2
Acquired thanks to Mr Abdulaziz al-Turki

Ahmed Mater is a Saudi artist and qualified GP. Working in photography, calligraphy, painting, installation and video, Mater reflects his experiences as a doctor and the ways this has challenged his traditional background and beliefs, and explores wider issues about Islamic culture in an era of globalisation. In the series 'Magnetism', what at first appear to be pilgrims circling the Ka'ba, the sacred building at the heart of the sanctuary at Mecca, are in fact iron filings spiralling around a cube-shaped magnet. Mater refers to the spiritual force that Muslim believers feel during Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. By creating photographs that recall well-known images on a dramatically different scale, Mater also questions the reliability of photography.

Abdulnasser Gharem, 'The Path (Siraat)'

Abdulnasser Gharem
Born Khamis Mushait, Saudi Arabia, 1973. Lives Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
'The Path (Siraat)'
2009
Inkjet print on aluminium
British Museum: 2009, 6033.1
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

Abdulnasser Gharem works across a variety of media to explore local Saudi issues. Amongst his best-known works are 'stamp paintings', made from industrial paint on rubber stamps, a technique devised to negotiate and comment on censorship. He combines service in the Saudi armed forces (he is currently Lieutenant Colonel) with his activities as an artist.

The subject of this photograph is a bridge in southern Saudi Arabia that was severely damaged in the early 1980s when villagers attempted to take shelter on it during a flash flood. Instead of providing a safe high ground above the floodwaters the bridge collapsed, resulting in the loss of many lives. Gharem spray-painted the word siraat repeatedly on the bridge. The word means path, and in the Qur'an it refers to 'the path to God'.

Jananne Al-Ani, still from 'Shadow Sites II'

Jananne Al-Ani
Born Kirkuk, Iraq, 1966. Lives London, UK
Still from 'Shadow Sites II'
2011
Single channel digital video. Duration 8 mins 38 secs
Photography by Adrian Warren
Courtesy the Artist and Rose Issa Projects, London

Al-Ani works with photography, film and video, producing bodies of work that explore the power of testimony and interrogate the documentary tradition, often characterised by an interweaving of intimate recollections of loss and trauma with more formal, official accounts of historic events.

This is a still from a video composed of a series of aerial views, which show that the desert is inhabited and not the unoccupied wilderness it is sometimes believed to be. The title draws on a phenomenon familiar to archaeologists: when the sun is at its lowest, shadows make visible the remains of otherwise undetectable settlements. Al-Ani’s images are presented without explanation and the scale of the landscapes is difficult to interpret. They are deliberately ambiguous and point to the limitations of photography.

Tal Shochat, 'Pomegranate (Rimon)'

Tal Shochat
Born Netanya, Israel, 1974. Lives Tel Aviv, Israel
'Pomegranate (Rimon)'
2010
C-print
Museum no. E.1127–2012
Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum

In her photographs Shochat stages both figures and objects to create symbolically-laden images that often question the boundary between nature and artifice. Here she applies the conventions of studio portraiture to photographing trees. The first stage in her meticulous process is to identify the perfect specimen of a particular type of tree. When the fruit is at the height of maturity, she cleans the dust off the branches, leaves and fruit. Finally, Shochat photographs the tree, artificially lit and isolated against a black cloth background. The photographs present a view of nature that would never actually exist in a natural environment. The work highlights the tensions in photography between reality and artifice.