Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
When violence is sustained long enough, it undergoes an insidious transformation: it ceases to be an acute aberration and settles into habit. In contemporary Iran, where the threat of regional warfare and nationwide telecommunications blackouts hangs perpetually over daily life, survival requires living alongside dread. For Iranian poster designer and visual artist Behnam Raeesian, graphic art is neither escapism nor passive witness; it is an urgent, razor-sharp dissection of how fear, grief, and resilience intertwine in the shadow of conflict.
Transmitted to Creativity’s UK amid mounting regional alarms, Raeesian’s latest poster series, We Continue (2026), interrogates the normalization of suffering. By subverting familiar domestic objects—a teacup, a party balloon, a rolled bandage, an adjustable wrench—Raeesian reveals how state violence and geopolitical catastrophe infiltrate the most intimate corners of everyday existence.
Behnam Raeesian, We Continue (2026). Digital poster. Gravestones traversing an infinity loop of grief and persistence. Artwork: Behnam Raeesian.
1. The Habit of Ruin: Domesticating the Unbearable
In oppressive climates, trauma rarely presents itself as an operatic spectacle; rather, it is absorbed through the mundane mechanics of daily routine. Raeesian examines this psychological desensitisation in Daily Rinse and Hooked on Hurt.
In Daily Rinse, a steaming cup of afternoon tea—traditionally a sacred pause for conversation and domestic comfort—is disrupted by a miniature washing machine subbing for the tea bag, endlessly laundering shock and atrocity. As Raeesian observes: “We hear the news, drink our tea, and do it all again tomorrow. I wanted to ask how much we can get used to before something painful starts to feel normal.”
That normalization turns darker still in Hooked on Hurt, where a rolled medical gauze bandage burns at the tip like a glowing cigarette, exhaling a coil of smoke. The metaphor cuts to the quick of collective trauma: when a populace lives under relentless crisis for decades, pain becomes so foundational to identity that its sudden absence would feel disorienting. The wound is cultivated like a vice, wearing down the body even as one arranges life around it.
2. The Stolen Sanctuary of Childhood
Nowhere is the intrusion of fear more devastating than in the lives of children. In A Tender Threat, Raeesian achieves a brilliant chromatic dissonance. The poster is washed in a soft, cheerful nursery pink, anchoring what initially appears to be a child’s black party balloon floating overhead.
Behnam Raeesian, A Tender Threat (2026). Digital poster. A balloon string morphing into a coiled serpent against a soft pink field. Artwork: Behnam Raeesian.
Yet as the eye travels down the tether to where small fingers would grasp it, the cord morphs into the coiled, fanged body of a viper. “I think about children who grow up with war and fear around them,” Raeesian reflects. “They still play and find reasons to be happy, but danger becomes part of their childhood much too early. A child should be able to enjoy something so simple without being afraid.” The work captures the precarious reality of upbringing under autocratic rule, where innocence is never fully insulated from state intimidation.
3. Geopolitical Backlash and Generational Sacrifice
Raeesian’s conceptual clarity shines equally in his examination of geopolitical violence. In Return to Sender, the three blades of a radiation hazard symbol are grafted onto an aerodynamic boomerang. It is a severe warning on the cyclical physics of militarism: devastation unleashed across borders never evaporates in a vacuum; it inevitably circles back, striking ordinary families who had no hand in the commands of generals.
In Necessary Ruin, the artist unites an industrial pipe wrench with the ballistic warhead of an aerial bomb. The work confronts the agonising moral calculus imposed upon Iranian youth: the irreconcilable tension between the urge to construct and the terrible necessity of dismantling. “This poster comes from the painful feeling that change may demand more from us than we can afford to lose,” says Raeesian. “What saddens me is reaching a point where it becomes difficult to imagine change without destruction, or a better future that we will actually be there to share.”
4. The Infinity of Survival: Why “We Continue”
The climactic anchor of the collection, We Continue, features solemn black gravestones marching along an eternal infinity lemniscate (∞) against an intense red ground. It is an unflinching visual testament to collective memory. In Iran, public grief is heavily criminalised; families of protesters and victims are routinely silenced, memorial gatherings banned, and tombstones desecrated. Yet Raeesian’s infinity loop insists that the departed cannot be erased from the living fabric of society.
Carrying the dead is exhausting, yet the loop refuses nihilism. It embodies both the cycle of mourning and the stubborn, unvanquished refusal to submit. “Sometimes continuing feels exhausting,” Raeesian writes. “We wake up without much strength, yet we still care for someone, make plans, or find ourselves hoping again. I want us to reach a life where our energy can go into more than just getting through another day.”
Artist Statement: Behnam Raeesian
“When violence becomes a habit, life begins to lose its meaning. Pain becomes so deeply rooted in our thoughts that letting go of it can leave us feeling lost, as if we are losing the life we know. This series comes from a question I ask myself: are we ready to live in a world without anger and pain?”
— Behnam Raeesian, November 2026
Series Catalogue: We Continue (2026)
A Tender Threat (Digital, 2026) — The intrusion of mortal peril into the sanctuary of childhood play.
Daily Rinse (Digital, 2026) — Domestic routine laundering chronic political horror into everyday tea time.
Hooked on Hurt (Digital, 2026) — The insidious habituation to trauma symbolised by a burning medical dressing.
Return to Sender (Digital, 2026) — The boomerang effect of state militarism upon civilian populations.
Necessary Ruin (Digital, 2026) — The tragedy of generational sacrifice and the wrench of structural change.
We Continue (Digital, 2026) — The infinite loop of mourning and civil resilience.
About the Artist:
Behnam Raeesian is an Iranian visual artist, graphic designer, and poster maker specialising in social and political communication. Working under difficult conditions in Iran, his practice explores visual resistance, systemic trauma, and the preservation of civilian dignity.
• Portfolio & Archives: behnamraeesian.com
• Instagram: @behnamraeesian
