Embodied Exile: Contemporary Iranian Women Artists and the Politics of Place

by Walker Parker, Sharon LaVon.

In my dissertation I address a gap in scholarship on contemporary Iranian women by using a selection of artworks as the lens through which to explore the gendered experience of exile and diaspora. More specifically, I examine the embodiment of personal and political space since the 1979 revolution as depicted by a selection of contemporary Iranian women artists some of whom live and work in the United States, others in Iran. Narratives embedded in their work examined in this project, provide a lens through which to view women’s particular experiences inside and outside post revolutionary Iran. Some artist’s works can be interpreted as descriptive of aspects of women’s legal status in Iran; while others demonstrate the feelings of post revolution estrangement (ghorbat) and internalized exile through their portrayals of the related issues of veiling and women’s cultural memory, as well as their private presence and public absence. Although engaging in a close reading of the art itself, I also draw from Iranian women’s literature including memoirs, poetry, and scholarly works. The primary artists whose works I discuss include Haleh Niazmand, Taraneh Hemami, Kendal Kennedy and Shirin Neshat (U.S.) and Minoo Asaadi, Samila Amir-Ebrihimi, and Shirin Etehadieh (Iran). Additional artists included in this dissertation are Kendal Kennedy, Sonia Balassanian and Shirin Neshat (U.S.). The poet whose work frames the issues in each chapter is Persis Karim. 10