Nava

Essay 513 • Nov 26th 2022

Nava is a singer from Tehran, Iran. We met in 2019 in Milan, where she's been living since she was 17. After the lockdown in Italy was finally over and I could travel to Milan, we got together a few times to take photos and talk music with the ease you usually share with long time friends.

 We shot this series of photos in a tiny studio in Milan before the summer, and it's mind-blowing how a few months have so deeply changed the reality around us.



In Nava's hometown, the police are brutally suppressing the riots that resulted from the killing of Mahsa Amini. In Italy, for the first time since the Second World War, a far right party was elected to govern the country.

 It's impossible for me not to look at our work together with new eyes and wonder at the ephemeral nature of our freedom.













 

Kimberley Ross is a freelance photographer based in Rome, Italy. She attended the International Center of Photography in New York and more recently has been selected to participate in the XXXIII edition of the Eddie Adams Workshop.
While living in New York she began exploring live music photography. She’s now a regular contributor to Rolling Stone Italy and Pitchfork, and her clients include Primavera Sound Festival, W Magazine, and GQ.
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