School of Social and Political Science

Description

Scholars, journalists, and activists have observed that visuality is essential to the Woman Life Freedom protests in Iran, which were sparked by the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini in 2022. In a digital culture revolving around the photo-sharing application Instagram – the most used social media in Iran – artistic and activist imaginaries mediate Iranians’ call for women’s rights and the separation of religion and government. In this presentation, I reflect on four “visual triggers” of this visual culture: a turn to revolutionary feminism, bodies that express gender equality, secularity and critiques of religion and theocracy, and Iranian nationalism. To do so, I rely on an analysis of visual culture that was made inside and outside of Iran and which circulates transnationally; interviews with a selection of the artists; and interviews and images documented in other academic and artistic analyses of the protests including four recent books that describe and constitute Iranian feminist protest art and visual culture: Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran, edited by Malu Halasa (Saqi 2023); Une révolution Iranienne: Femme, Vie, Liberté, by Odile Burluraux and Hugo Vitrani (Beaux-arts de Paris 2023); Femme Vie Liberté, compiled by Marjane Satrapi (L'Iconoclaste 2023); and Women Art Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran, written by Pamela Karimi (Leuven UP 2024).