Mojgan Ghanbari was assigned in 2017 to submit a photo essay on borders to the Joop Swart Masterclass, a workshop for up-and-coming young photographers. She had been documenting the lives of young women in Iran, her home country, for a series titled “Zanan,” or “women” in Persian. That project earned her a $10,000 grant from Getty Images and inspired her to explore another side of femininity: the relationship between mothers and daughters.

“I came to this realization that young women are influenced by their parents,” Ms. Ghanbari said. And yet, she added, “I felt like there might be a border, there might be something like a wall we create at a certain age between ourselves and our parents.”

That invisible barrier is a universal aspect of young adulthood, one that surfaces the moment we realize we inherit so much from our elders, yet lead completely different lives. For many young Iranian women today, that gap is widened by several factors, the most obvious being the Islamic Revolution.