PhD candidate Leili Adibfar interviewed in Jadaliyya: “Archiving the War: On Public Statements and Political Memory”
Introduction
During the twelve-day war on Iran, a flurry of statements, commentaries, and open letters appeared across digital platforms, institutional websites, and social media feeds. Produced by artists, academics, activists, NGOs, and cultural institutions, these utterances offer a volatile yet revealing window into the political, affective, and discursive landscape of the moment. How can such ephemeral material be preserved? And what is at stake in deciding what counts as part of the archive?
Leili Adibfar, an art historian and cultural critic, created a digital archive of these documents as they were issued. The archive, accessible here, includes forty-two public statements from the start of the war on 13 June 2025 until three weeks after direct hostilities ceased as well as twenty-eight reports and opinion pieces, a plethora of media interviews by experts, and select examples of visual art. It exhibits the range of perspectives provoked by the conflict across Iranian civil society as well as among Iran’s global diaspora.
In this interview, Adibfar discusses the process, criteria, and ethical stakes of collecting material in real time, highlighting the risks of omission and the responsibilities of archiving in moments of crisis. Her remarks are followed by Azam Khatam—an instructor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, with a Ph.D. in Urban Environment from York and a background in sociology—who engages the substance of the collection. Drawing on her expertise in urban politics and Iranian society, Khatam maps the discursive terrain, identifying patterns, silences, and surprising interventions.
Together, these reflections raise broader questions about the politics of memory, the dynamics of Iranian civil society, and the contested role of public voice during war.
—Nazanin Shahrokni and Arash Davari
READ THE INTERVIEW: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/46894/Archiving-the-War-On-Public-Statements-and-Political-Memory