Two years ago this month, a 22-year-old woman was murdered by the police. Her death would reverberate around the world.
Mahsa Amini, an Iranian citizen of Kurdish descent, was taken into police custody and dealt several blows to the head. She later died in a hospital in Iran’s capital, Tehran. The young woman’s only alleged crime was not correctly wearing her hijab. Iran’s theocratic regime requires all women to wear a head covering in public.
In the weeks following Amini’s death, a protest movement erupted across the country. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement – named after the popular protest chant “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” – pitted women, even religious women who often support the Iranian regime, against the state and its repressive morality police.
The movement showed the world a new side of Iran, one that is young, female, and defiant.
In Iran, where freedom of expression is often curtailed, and the Internet is monitored and censored, artists emerged as significant representatives of this new movement. They also played a pivotal role in broadcasting it to the world.
A new report from the Artistic Freedom Initiative, entitled I Create; I Resist: Iranian Artists on the Frontline of Social Change, highlights the role Iranian artists played in resisting the regime.
“Given the critical role that Iranian art played in inspiring and sustaining the movement, artists were among the first groups to be targeted by the Islamic Republic as the government cracked down on the protests,” the report reads. “From September 2022 to the present, Iranian artists have reported being threatened and harmed for their work in support of the movement. Further, the government has launched numerous attacks on Iranian artists, including work bans, arbitrary arrests and prosecution, torture and the solicitation of false confessions, restrictions on mobility, and transnational repression.”
Remembering the artists
Johanna Bankston, one of the report’s authors, told Lazo Magazine that calling attention to Iranian artists ensures that the world they want to build isn’t forgotten.
“It’s important to highlight the artists’ contributions because their works were not only legitimate forms of dissent and protest, which are protected under international human rights law, but many of them were also poignant reflections of Iranians’ shared desire to create a future written on their own terms,” she said. “By censoring these works and attempting to imprison the artists behind them, the regime’s disregard for Iranians’ rights and freedoms is more clear than ever.”
Many of these artists have been forced into exile to avoid persecution.
Here’s a look at some of the featured artists:
Nazanin Noroozi
Noroozi is an Iranian multidisciplinary visual artist living in the United States. She creates films, still images, and collages. She often uses her work to call attention to human rights abuses in Iran.
Jalz
Jalz is an Iranian graphic designer who created an image of Iran’s Azadi (Freedom) Tower superimposed behind Henri Matisse’s dancers.
Roshi Rouzbehani
Rouzbehani is a visual artist who uses graphic design to commemorate performative action and protest. She was the artist behind the 2023 work, My Hair is Not Your Battle Ground.
Arghavan Khosravi
Iranian visual artist Arghavan Khosravi creates art that represents the experience of Iranian women and women who face human rights abuses globally. She moved to the U.S. to study art in 2015. She has been forced to remain in the country ever since the Trump administration implemented its controversial Muslim ban.
