Dylan Thomas in Iran: Reframing colonial oil industry archive imagery
Join filmmaker Nariman Massoumi and archivist and researcher Rosa Méthol for a collaborative workshop exploring colonial-era oil company photographs and their legacies. Using images featured in his short documentary Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (2023, 26 min), which retraces poet Dylan Thomas’s 1951 journey through Iran, participants will rework these photographs through creative exercises with fragments of text and media.
Together you will question what the images reveal and conceal, and explore how they can be reused and reimagined as living records of history. You will also consider how the images interact with Thomas’s writing and with sound in the film, which will be screened as part of the workshop. Open to all and/or artists, researchers, community members, or simply anyone curious about rethinking the visual archives and histories of colonialism and oil. Please book in advance to claim your spot.
Lunch will be provided at 1pm
This event is part of the University of Bristol Being Human Festival 2025 Hub Programme.
