Afrang Nordlöf Malekian always keeps a passport in his suitcase but is never quite sure how to pose in the passport photo to reach the destination of his dreams.

When I renewed my passport in Karaj over a decade ago, the photographer decided I looked “too feminine” for an official document—and yet, somehow, his retouching made me look even more feminine. – Afrang Nordlöf Malekian

Years later, as an intern at the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut, he stumbled upon portraits from the 1940s to the ’80s, with saturated shades of magentas, blues, and reds. All the faces were meticulously tamed to a particular aesthetic that strangely reminded him of his overly touched-up passport photo. Nordlöf Malekian came to learn that these beauty standards trace back to a magnificent sun, both female and male, shining beside a lion—an ancient couple from the depths of the universe: the sun in the house of Leo.

In The Lion’s Tail, I’m on a mission to figure out the perfect pose for my next passport photo by tracing the cosmic world of the (fe)male sun and Leo, and who knows where I’ll end up next. – Afrang Nordlöf Malekian