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![April 2026 – Mahsa Attaran prepares for her new art exhibition, “Dark Dey,” reflecting on the regime massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in her home country of Iran in January 2026. The installation is now on display through July 5th at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT.
As I met Mahsa in her New England studio, she was threading strands of red yarn and fabric around a Farsi-language neon sign for a piece titled “Sepehr-e-Baba.”
This piece, she explains, was inspired by graphic footage she watched after thousands of her compatriots were gunned down in January by Basij militias and Islamic Republic regime forces. Over 36,000 people were killed that month, according to Iran International, while other estimates range far higher.
Scrolling through scenes of bodies and human remains littering the country’s streets, morgues, and hospitals, Mahsa was haunted by one particular video of a father desperately searching a Tehran morgue for his 25 year-old son, Sepehr Shokri, killed while protesting on January 8th, 2026, a night that saw the highest death toll throughout the country.
The original 12-minute video went viral on Iranian diaspora social media, bringing to light the massive scale of the violent crackdown, while the country’s 93 million citizens themselves are still largely kept in the dark under a regime-enforced internet blackout for most of 2026.
The father, Esmail, was later violently arrested at his son’s funeral in March, according to the Kurdish-Iranian Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
“There is no crime this regime is not committed to,” Mahsa tells me. “He’s going through every [body] bag and looking for his Sepehr. He’s saying ‘Where are you, where are you, my Sepehr?’”
“This whole time he’s not only looking for his kid but he feels like being a dad for each of those bodies, too,” she continued. “So it’s very sad, very powerful video. It can tell the whole story, just that video is enough, even though we have hundreds of videos like that and photos like that.” by @yakov.binyamin](https://scontent-sjc6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-15/701009750_18179372725395105_8679522505426151185_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=111&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0FST1VTRUxfSVRFTS5iZXN0X2ltYWdlX3VybGdlbi5DMyJ9&_nc_ohc=1E7QkCUrDOQQ7kNvwHi_mLK&_nc_oc=AdrpDj6sDNRVnrOqi49kqq18r3W7D8oUT2G9Olz6cd9V2QekC6Od-0ml4F7rL9p_FyZdow988DaxeAvam-HunGFH&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-sjc6-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_gid=PhlKLwT48_xzCckPKhfjoQ&_nc_ss=70689&oh=00_AQRw_beHjm_CfkL1EEjE7iyQmxD8HQIJjRrMc2hHycN5fg&oe=6AEF8EF4)
