A Selection of Abstracts I have presented at International conferences:
Narratives of autonomy and resistance: young Iranian women’s struggles to become visible
Based on interviews conducted in Tehran between 2004 and 2007, I will create a space to reflect on how despite the severe hardships and restrictions, young women in Iran succeed in developing broad visions for change both at home and in relation to socio-political dynamics of their locale, and in dialogue with youth cultures in the world. With intent, they adopt, construct, and express meaningful identities, re-define their sense of self, and maintain strong physical and intellectual presence in society. They draw on education and the experiences of the fmale significant Other around them to maintain continuity in the women's movement in Iran. Whether political activists, lawyers, publishers, campaigners for change in the Family Law, for peace, for anti-stoning, and for the right of entry to sports stadiumns, the young urban women posit new perspectives for the future of women in Iran.
Moving Image as Data: Fact, Fiction, documentary, or Art and Illusion?
To be reflexive and critical is vital in contemporary research in social science, but where can the use of a digital video camera take us in such works? Closer to the real, or nearer to its truths? In this paper I will draw on my recent documentary work of three short videos, a total of 10 minutes, to discuss visual self-ethnography as the Autor's Text. I will argue that the construction of visual knowledge in response to diversity in forms and methods of enquiry, whether art video or not, make highly valid contributions to a better understanding of the complexity of ontologies and inter-subjectivity in research. I will further argue that visual methodologies in sociological research not only enliven the range of meanings and hermeneutics, but also posit epistemologic trajectories otherwise not accessed. The paper aims to look into shifts in understanding, and discuss critical and reflexive perspectives in research rather than arrive at absolutist conclusions.
Painted Identities
The intersection of gender, art, and identity has created new dynamics and energy in contemporary art in the Islamic Republic of Iran. While figurative art has been a significant aspect of Iranian art for centuries, drawing on the concept of the body when only partially covered or in the state of undress is categorically banned. This presentation will draw on ethnographic observations from the art practices of young women in Tehran to discuss symbolic forms of socio-political resistance. The ownership of the body and the autonomy of the mind facilitate collaborative and private sites of learning where identities are contested and constructed through painting selves.
Agency and Autonomy and Forms of Resistance through Art Education
This paper draws on observations in the field, and the deconstruction of the structures in art education at Tehran University and al-Zahra University for Women to illuminate spaces of autonomy and of agency in the behaviour of the female student body. Projecting the data from Tehran, both ethnographic observation and visual texts, the paper argues that far from being 'lost' and 'over-affected' by meaningless Westernisation, or in pursuit of 'purely materialistic' goals, this young urban generation seeks to be critical, reflexive, and progressive. I will demonstrate how the young women's behaviours are the manifestation of their struggles and triumphs in the post-revolutionary post-Iran-Iraq era, and how they alert us to desires for change, and a fuller understanding of both the Selves and society in contemporary Iran. Contrary to contentions from outside Iran about Muslim women, the female student body particularly, are neither a-political, nor disinterested in socio-politics. Rather, they search for peaceful means and able tools for change to structure lives and take ideas forward.
Deconstructing and Demistifying the Study of Art Theory and art Practice in Higher Education in Iran
Drawing on ethnographic observations, perceptions of key interviewees from the institutions under study, and images from the field, this paper aims at analysing the most significant elements in the teaching and learning structures in art education at Tehran and Al-Zahra Universities. It specifically addresses the interrelationship between theoretical structures and studio practices in Fine Art. The paper explores the range and breadth in ‘art theory’, its weight in the curriculum, its purpose, and its stance as a core subject across disciplines. Such theories are primarily based on an historical-intercultural overview of the developments in ideas, with specific focus on the role of Iranian heritage wherever appropriate. They culminate in ‘Art and World Civilizations’ and, ‘Art and Muslim Civilization’, taught by theoreticians who are scholars in their fields. The framework for history of painting and sculpture, however, falls mostly within the boundaries of modernism. It is evident in student presentations that specific attention is paid to abstraction or Abstract Art, avoiding any reference to the idea of ‘the nude’; nudity and erotic art are not tolerated by the Islamic regime. The study of the figure is viewed differently, however, and often features in students’ work.
On Visual Narrative
The context for this paper is an interdisciplinary PhD enquiry in art education and social science in the Islamic Republic of Iran by an Iranian born researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University. It questions the interrelationships between art, identities, and socio-politics amongst art students, art tutors, and curriculum designers. Layers in phenomena were revealed and made sense of through the systematic and critical arrangement of the personal histories of the participants. Such narratives I have accompanied by two short visual texts or art videos approximately 4 minutes long each. They interconnect and narrate my presence as the researcher and practicing artist in the processes of enquiry, making meaning of aspects of my identity and experiences, and my cultural and human connection with the researched. Titled ‘My Feet’, and ‘Deconstructing Alien Geography’, the videos become cultural artefacts, at once visually narrating my movements in the private space of the studio in England, and moving around in public transport in Tehran. In a chain of images, the narrative method here tells a multi-dimensional story of sensibilities, gendered behaviours, and the notion of the glocal, responding to the demands of contemporary research.
It is a method of study if by producing the narrative, both as data and means for analysing those data, a path is created for the better understanding and reflecting on trajectories in epistemologies. One such method is the visual form of narrative in art videos where means of data collection, data analysis or editing, and data framing or presentation might be discussed. I shall argue that such art videos will be a deconstructive methodological tool investigating and narrating layers of lived experience, and mindscapes.