The Poetics and Politics of the Veil in Iran

An Archival and Photographic Adventure

By (author) Azadeh Fatehrad

Publication date:

01 January 2020

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

244x170mm
7x10"

ISBN-13: 9781789381269

This volume explores the lives of women in Iran through the social, political and aesthetic contexts of veiling, unveiling and re-veiling. Through poetic writings and photographs, Azadeh Fatehrad responds to the legacy of the Iranian Revolution via the representation of women in photography, literature and film. The images and texts are documentary, analytical and personal.

The Poetics and Politics of the Veil in Iran features Fatehrad’s own photographs in addition to work by artists Hengameh Golestan, Shirin Neshat, Shadi Ghadirian, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Adolf Loos, Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault and Alison Watt. In exploring women’s lives in post-revolutionary Iran, Fatehrad considers the role of the found image and the relationship between the archive and the present, resulting in an illuminating history of feminism in Iran in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

About the Book
Preface
Introduction

Chapter One
1.1 Iran in 1936
1.2 The Hijab in Iran
1.3 On Feminism in Iran
1.4 The Islamic Revolution of 1979
1.5 On Photography

Chapter Two
2.1 On Veiling and Writing
2.2 Veiling and the Sense of Protection
2.3 On Veiling and Modesty
2.4 On Looking

Chapter Three
3.1 Mobile Architecture
3.2 On the Garden: Away from the Crowd
3.3 Drapery: Displacement from the Body to the Fabric
3.4 Today in Iran: The Contemporary Public Life

Appendix: The Showroom Project September 2015
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

'The book delves into a multitude of topics, including waves of feminism in Iran, photography, film, and the societal standards the veil has placed upon women. Fatehrad focuses on the act of 'veiling, unveiling, and re-veiling' and how the veil has become a metaphor for women in Iran. Throughout her book, Fatehrad places her own photographs, stills from female-directed Iranian films, and images of Iranian women in daily life, protest, and history. The veil exists in a myriad of forms throughout the book, and while remaining the same in its material state, it possesses different meanings and objectives for women in Iran that Fatehrad analyzes in detail.'