In Review: “She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World”
Presently, there is a persistent call for art that facilitates discussion or makes a statement about our political reality. Since the early 1990s, the concept of socially-engaged art has developed with a growing intensity. Activism has become a favorite theme of the art world, especially in recent years with countless political and economic crises. The UNC campus is lucky enough to house the Ackland Art Museum, which brings some of the most famous and relevant pieces of art from all over the world to the Chapel Hill community. One of the museum’s current exhibits is called “She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World.” The title of the exhibition is inspired by the Arabic word rawiya, which means “she who tells a story.”
The description of the exhibit on the Ackland’s website is the following:
During this critical time for Iran and the Arab world, as national and personal identities are being dismantled and rebuilt, contemporary photography reflects the complexities of unprecedented change. One of the most significant trends to emerge is the work of women photographers, whose remarkable and provocative images provide insights into new cultural landscapes, questioning tradition and challenging perceptions of Middle Eastern and Arab identity.
Simply put, the artists urge us to consider the role of art in politics. Newsha Tavakolian, creator of the piece below said:
I got to a stage in my career where news photography became almost impossible for me. I always give this example: when they keep you from breathing through your nose, you open your mouth to breathe. For me, art photography was necessary to be able to breathe again. I am passionate about documentary and news photography, but I was not allowed to think freely in that realm. . . . I developed a love for art photography too.
Newsha Tavakolian, Maral Afsharian from the series “Listen,” 2010; Pigment print photograph, 23 5/8 x 31 1/2 in.; Courtesy of the artist and East Wing Contemporary Gallery.
In many of these photos in the exhibit, we see how politics, art, and identity are bound up in one another. The female body is politicized all over the world, but this exhibit focuses on how specifically the Arab female body is politicized, sexualized, and even pitied.
Rania Matar and Shadi Ghadirian are two artists that really bring this issue to light. Matar says,
The images here are part of that series in the Middle East—Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. They include six young women from all backgrounds and religions, and it is honestly not obvious at all to guess which one is Muslim, Druze, or Christian. The focus is on being a girl, on growing up, and on identity. . . . Being with those young women in the privacy of their world gave me a unique peek into their private lives and their inner selves.
Ghadrian, commenting on her work said, “The photographs depict conscious choice made by these women; an act of rebellion, of subtlety of changes foreseen.”
Apart from the more obvious focus on the role of women in the Arab world, each artist in the exhibit portrays the world that they have witnessed and experienced through different media. For example, Gohar Dashti’s series “Today’s Life and War” shows the mundane activities of people growing up in war. Eating, loving, living, and just being are all shrouded in an ongoing duality of life and death— a duality that Dashti herself experienced growing up during the Iran-Iraq war (Sierzputowski).
Gohar Dashti, Untitled #2, from the series “Today’s Life and War,” 2008; Chromogenic print, 27 5/8 x 41 3/8 in.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase with funds donated by the Weintz Family Harbor Lights Foundation, 2013.555; © Gohar Dashti
Artist Rula Halawani also captured an experience esoteric to those living in war with her project “Negative Incursions.” Halawani, a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem, captured these images during the 2002 Israeli incursion into the West Bank.
Figure 2 Rula Halawani, Untitled XIX, Negative Incursion series, 2002, archival print, 90 x 124 cm, edition of 5. Photo courtesy of the artist and Ayyam Gallery.
The exhibit provides viewers with the unique opportunity to see conflict through the eyes of the people that it has directly affected. For students, this is a way to go beyond the books. The exhibit humanizes Arab society, Islam, and Iran in a way that is often looked over in efforts to academically “understand” each other.
Works Cited
IVC. “Black and White and Back: Reversed Negatives in Rula Halawani’s Series ‘Negative Incursions.’” InVisible Culture, ivc.lib.rochester.edu/black-and-white-and-back-reversed-negatives-in-rula-halawanis-series-negative-incursions/.
Leica and Newsha Tavakolian. “Newsha Tavakolian: Trying to Unfold Layers and Delve Deeper.” The Leica Camera Blog, 1 Oct. 2018, www.leica-camera.blog/2012/07/09/newsha-tavakolian-trying-to-unfold-layers-and-delve-deeper/.
Matar, R. Phone interview with National Museum of Women in the Arts.
“She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World.” Ackland Art Museum, 2019, ackland.org/exhibition/she-who-tells-a-story/.
Sierzputowski, Kate. “Nature Thrives in Tehran's Abandoned Courtyards, Staircases, and Bedrooms in a Photo Series by Gohar Dashti.” Colossal, 12 July 2019, www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/07/home-gohar-dashti/.
Women in the arts. “She Who Tells a Story: Shadi Ghadirian.” Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog, 17 May 2016, blog.nmwa.org/2016/05/17/she-who-tells-a-story-shadi-ghadirian/.
Photo Citation: Newsha Tavakolian, Maral Afsharian from the series “Listen,” 2010; Pigment print photograph, 23 5/8 x 31 1/2 in.; Courtesy of the artist and East Wing Contemporary Gallery
