DOI Artikel:
Inglot, Joanna: Trans-cultural dialogues in the art of Iranian Diaspora: Shirin Neshat and Parastou Forouhar
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.34225#0082
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JOANNA INGLOT
homogenizing forces and disrupts fixed cuitural identities^. By fragmenting, diffusing, and decentraiizing
the dominant discursive frameworks that define Musłim femaie subjects, these artists have aiso forged
new cross-cuitura! and transnationai diaiogues between Western and Musiim worids.
Shirin Neshat is the most acciaimed artist of the iranian diaspora. Her groundbreaking photographic
series №b/7?<?77 о/М/Лз/? (1993-1997) brought her instantaneous internationa) success when it was first
exhibited in New York in 1996, and since then it has continued to attract the attention of audiences,
critics, and scholars. Consisting of thirty-eight stark biack-and-white photographs featuring iranian women
clad in chador, mostly representing the artist herseif, these works critically intervene into the dominant
representations of Musiim women in the West and within the prescriptions of Islamic iaws. Provocativeiy
empioying culturaiiy and politicaiiy charged symbois such as "the veii/ cailigraphic Persian script, and
weapons, Neshat simuitaneousiy evokes and unsettles the putative cuiturai binaries and totalizing ideoiogical
constructs that frame her subjects historicaily, especiaiiy in the aftermath of the Iranian Revoiution of 1979.
In interviews, Neshat has often repeated that she created ifb77?e77 о/М//<з/7 as a direct response to the
postrevolutionary changes in her homeiand after the estabiishment of the Islamic Republic by the Shiite ieader
Ayatoiiah Khomeini on February 1, i979. Bom in iran in 1957, she ieft the country in 1974, just a few years
befbre the upheavais broke out. She was unabie to retum untii 1990, when the turmoil of the revoiution
and the ensuing iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) finaliy subsided. Commenting on the abrupt sociopoiiticai and
cultural shiff that had occurred whiie she was out of the country, she noted "[Bjefore i ieft they were Iranian-
Persians, and now they were strict Musiims. Visuaiiy everything was biack and white, and women had to
be in dark ciothes"/ On another occasion she added: "Street names had changed from oid Persian names to
Arabic and Muslim names [...]. This whoie shift of the Persian identity toward a more Isiamic one created
a kind of crisis'A In constructing №0777^77 о/М//<т/?, Neshat seiected the trope of a veiled Muslim woman as
shorthand for these symbolic and materiai cuiturai transfbrmations and aiso as a sign for Westem concepts
that discipline and homogenize Mustim women into a single, reductive category.
The Persian word "chador'7 which literaiiy means "a tent", refers to a semicircular iong black cloak
that covers a woman's entire body, except the face, hands, and feet, and has been wom in different periods
by Musiim and non-Musiim women in iran. Connected with the Isiamic practice of /77/b/? (meaning "to
hide from view" or "to conceai"), this styie of dress has functioned at different times as an embiem of
prestige and high status for upper-ciass women and as an embiem of modesty, defining women's proper
comportment in reiigious contextsT In the early twentieth century„ however, the veil was transformed
into an object of politicak sociai, and religious contestation. It acquired a speciai significance during the
Pahlavi dynasty, especiaily during the reigns of Reza Shah (i 926-1941) and his son, Mohammad Reza
Shah (1953-1978), when Iran experienced rapid Westernization and modemization. On January 8, 1936,
Reza Shah ordered the compuisory unveiling of women and the adoption of European dress for both
women and men, as a reflection of social progress and a new image of the country fbr the twentieth
centuryb During the foilowing decades, Iranian society, especiaiiy in urban areas, grew accustomed to this
Westernized mode of dress, but in the mid-1970s, when the resistance movement against the Westem-backed
dictatorship of the Shah deveioped, women, who emerged as a major poiitical force in the oppositiom
wiiiingiy embraced the traditionai chador as a sign of protest. After the establishment of the Islamic State
in 1979, the Supreme Leader of the Repubiic, Ayatoliah Ruhoilah Khomeini (1979-1989), reversed the
Shah's poiicy, implementing Sharia iaw and mandating compuisory veiiing in 1983 to communicate Iran's
rejection of Westem domination and to the reinforce religious Shiite identity of the new revolutionary
Iran. For iarge segments of poiiticaiiy and reiigiously engaged women, wearing the mandated hijab and
especially the traditional chador demonstrated their aliiance with the revolution and the expression of their
3 H.K. Bhabha, 7V?<? Zocabo?? o/* См/7мге, London-New York: Routledge, 1994.
4 J.B. Ravenal. X/?ó'ó? AYs7?a?. Do??/?/g J?T?'o??. in N. Broude, M.D. Gerrard (ed.), 7/ec/o?'????'??g Dc???o/c Hgc??cv.' Dc????'??A7,4?T
Жу?о?*у q/7c?' Соу?77?о<7е?*??;Т7?;, Bcrkeley: University of Califomia Press, 2005. p. 448.
^ Shirin Neshat quoted in S. Horsburgh, "No Place Like Home", TIME Europe. August 14, 2000.
6 F. E1 Guindi. 1E?7. T/o<7es'?v. P?*?'vocv, o??<7 T/ey?T7o??cc, Oxford: Berg, 1999. pp. 13-21. For other discussions on the veil see
J. Wallach Scott, D?e Po/q/cs* q/"?/?e Jb;7, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, and F. Shirazi, 77?e Je;7 D??ve;7e<7.' 77?e
////oZ? /?? Afor/e?-?? C;?/7;??'e, Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
7 A. Najmabadi, "Hazards of Modemity and Morality: Women, State and Ideology in Contemporary Iran." in D. Kandiyoti
(ed.), IJG???^??, D/o??;. o??<7 ?/?e X?o?e, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991, pp. 22-48.
JOANNA INGLOT
homogenizing forces and disrupts fixed cuitural identities^. By fragmenting, diffusing, and decentraiizing
the dominant discursive frameworks that define Musłim femaie subjects, these artists have aiso forged
new cross-cuitura! and transnationai diaiogues between Western and Musiim worids.
Shirin Neshat is the most acciaimed artist of the iranian diaspora. Her groundbreaking photographic
series №b/7?<?77 о/М/Лз/? (1993-1997) brought her instantaneous internationa) success when it was first
exhibited in New York in 1996, and since then it has continued to attract the attention of audiences,
critics, and scholars. Consisting of thirty-eight stark biack-and-white photographs featuring iranian women
clad in chador, mostly representing the artist herseif, these works critically intervene into the dominant
representations of Musiim women in the West and within the prescriptions of Islamic iaws. Provocativeiy
empioying culturaiiy and politicaiiy charged symbois such as "the veii/ cailigraphic Persian script, and
weapons, Neshat simuitaneousiy evokes and unsettles the putative cuiturai binaries and totalizing ideoiogical
constructs that frame her subjects historicaily, especiaiiy in the aftermath of the Iranian Revoiution of 1979.
In interviews, Neshat has often repeated that she created ifb77?e77 о/М//<з/7 as a direct response to the
postrevolutionary changes in her homeiand after the estabiishment of the Islamic Republic by the Shiite ieader
Ayatoiiah Khomeini on February 1, i979. Bom in iran in 1957, she ieft the country in 1974, just a few years
befbre the upheavais broke out. She was unabie to retum untii 1990, when the turmoil of the revoiution
and the ensuing iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) finaliy subsided. Commenting on the abrupt sociopoiiticai and
cultural shiff that had occurred whiie she was out of the country, she noted "[Bjefore i ieft they were Iranian-
Persians, and now they were strict Musiims. Visuaiiy everything was biack and white, and women had to
be in dark ciothes"/ On another occasion she added: "Street names had changed from oid Persian names to
Arabic and Muslim names [...]. This whoie shift of the Persian identity toward a more Isiamic one created
a kind of crisis'A In constructing №0777^77 о/М//<т/?, Neshat seiected the trope of a veiled Muslim woman as
shorthand for these symbolic and materiai cuiturai transfbrmations and aiso as a sign for Westem concepts
that discipline and homogenize Mustim women into a single, reductive category.
The Persian word "chador'7 which literaiiy means "a tent", refers to a semicircular iong black cloak
that covers a woman's entire body, except the face, hands, and feet, and has been wom in different periods
by Musiim and non-Musiim women in iran. Connected with the Isiamic practice of /77/b/? (meaning "to
hide from view" or "to conceai"), this styie of dress has functioned at different times as an embiem of
prestige and high status for upper-ciass women and as an embiem of modesty, defining women's proper
comportment in reiigious contextsT In the early twentieth century„ however, the veil was transformed
into an object of politicak sociai, and religious contestation. It acquired a speciai significance during the
Pahlavi dynasty, especiaily during the reigns of Reza Shah (i 926-1941) and his son, Mohammad Reza
Shah (1953-1978), when Iran experienced rapid Westernization and modemization. On January 8, 1936,
Reza Shah ordered the compuisory unveiling of women and the adoption of European dress for both
women and men, as a reflection of social progress and a new image of the country fbr the twentieth
centuryb During the foilowing decades, Iranian society, especiaiiy in urban areas, grew accustomed to this
Westernized mode of dress, but in the mid-1970s, when the resistance movement against the Westem-backed
dictatorship of the Shah deveioped, women, who emerged as a major poiitical force in the oppositiom
wiiiingiy embraced the traditionai chador as a sign of protest. After the establishment of the Islamic State
in 1979, the Supreme Leader of the Repubiic, Ayatoliah Ruhoilah Khomeini (1979-1989), reversed the
Shah's poiicy, implementing Sharia iaw and mandating compuisory veiiing in 1983 to communicate Iran's
rejection of Westem domination and to the reinforce religious Shiite identity of the new revolutionary
Iran. For iarge segments of poiiticaiiy and reiigiously engaged women, wearing the mandated hijab and
especially the traditional chador demonstrated their aliiance with the revolution and the expression of their
3 H.K. Bhabha, 7V?<? Zocabo?? o/* См/7мге, London-New York: Routledge, 1994.
4 J.B. Ravenal. X/?ó'ó? AYs7?a?. Do??/?/g J?T?'o??. in N. Broude, M.D. Gerrard (ed.), 7/ec/o?'????'??g Dc???o/c Hgc??cv.' Dc????'??A7,4?T
Жу?о?*у q/7c?' Соу?77?о<7е?*??;Т7?;, Bcrkeley: University of Califomia Press, 2005. p. 448.
^ Shirin Neshat quoted in S. Horsburgh, "No Place Like Home", TIME Europe. August 14, 2000.
6 F. E1 Guindi. 1E?7. T/o<7es'?v. P?*?'vocv, o??<7 T/ey?T7o??cc, Oxford: Berg, 1999. pp. 13-21. For other discussions on the veil see
J. Wallach Scott, D?e Po/q/cs* q/"?/?e Jb;7, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, and F. Shirazi, 77?e Je;7 D??ve;7e<7.' 77?e
////oZ? /?? Afor/e?-?? C;?/7;??'e, Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
7 A. Najmabadi, "Hazards of Modemity and Morality: Women, State and Ideology in Contemporary Iran." in D. Kandiyoti
(ed.), IJG???^??, D/o??;. o??<7 ?/?e X?o?e, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991, pp. 22-48.