Unfamiliar faces Ehsaei says: ‘I found a subculture inside the country, a topic few people know about, even among Iranians. I began my project with the intention to reveal new facets and unfamiliar faces of Iran.’ Most often, Afro-Iranians are the descendants of those who arrived via the Indian Ocean slave trade in the 19th century. When slavery ceased in Iran in 1928, many settled in the south

Photograph: Mahdi Ehsaei