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Nostalgia. Sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. But what if this sweet, warm, and fuzzy feeling was exploited by world leaders, and used as a tool to manipulate the masses?

That\u2019s what Afshin Naghouni, a London-based Iranian-born British visual artist, believes has been happening around the world, with increasingly terrifying consequences. Through the rhetoric of the \u201cgood old days\u201d, and an insistence on returning to the heyday of a \u201cglorious\u201d past, Afshin believes that some world leaders are tugging on nations\u2019 collective nostalgic heartstrings to further their own agendas, and he explores this in his art.

Reporter Sahar Zand visits Afshin\u2019s studio in West London, to find out how, for his new collection, the artist will paint this \u201ccollective nostalgic feeling\u201d for a past we don\u2019t remember correctly or haven\u2019t personally experienced, drawn in our head by some external force. Having had to adapt and relearn how to paint after a life-changing accident, and vowing never to reveal what exactly each piece is depicting, mystery, and the overcoming of adversity, exist alongside imagined nostalgia as vital components in his vivid and evocative artworks.

Reporter/Producer: Sahar Zand\nExecutive Producer: Rebecca Armstrong for the BBC World Service