Tehran – Over 3,000 historic photographs are kept at the UNESCO-registered Golestan Palace. It is categorized into a wide range of new projects called “Awakened Mirrors.”
Afrin Emami, director of the Golestang Palace World Heritage Site, said the project was carried out during the public closure period (due to the potential threat of Israeli airstrikes that stopped on June 24th following a 12-day conflict).
She emphasized that the initiative aims to transform Golestan Palace into a dynamic and innovative centre for museum practice.
Emami described the temporary closure of the museum not as a halt, but as an opportunity to reinvent it. “This project was developed by answering questions. Can the museum shine in silence? Through the concurrent execution of six important plans, we answered this question in the affirmative manner,” she said.
The six core plans include an interactive exhibition entitled “Unseen Pages of History,” unpublished documents from the palace photo archives, emergency recovery of mirror work, plaster work, infrastructure, professional staff training under the “Learning Golestan” program, creative storytelling for children, and archival studies based on documented documented teenagers’ first time filming, known as “Palace Tales.”
Emami also highlighted content development efforts during this period. For example, we have redefined the creation of documentary clips that narrate artifacts through past documents, redesigning websites with multimedia capabilities, and redefining content production on social media platforms.
She noted that the classification of over 3,000 historical photographs follows the international CIDOC-CRM standard, which tells us important steps towards professional documentation and promotes research in the academic community.
Furthermore, Emami highlighted an extended invitation to historians and scholars to participate in research projects and revise historical narratives as part of the management’s commitment to transparency and scientific rigor.
The Golestan palace complex once served as the official residence of the Kajar monarch who ruled Persia (now Iran) between 1789 and 1925. It exemplifies the architectural and artistic achievements of Kajal’s epoch and the introduction of European motifs and styles into Peruan art.
Experts say it displays an incredible mix of ancient Persian languages and modern European architectural styles that characterized much of Iranian art in the 19th and 20th centuries. The complex has successfully integrated previous Persian crafts and architecture with Western influences. Over the past two centuries, it has become a center of art and architecture, and to this day has been a source of inspiration for Iranian artists and architects.
A top-level destination for visitors to the Iranian capital, the facility embraces eight important palace structures, which are primarily used as gardens of the same name as the museum.
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