As the exhibition by women photographers celebrating International
Women’s Day, ends at the Drik Gallery, an Iranian woman explores the
everyday lives of women. Shadi Ghadirian was one of the photographers
featured in the recent Chobi Mela III.
http://www.newint.org/issue374/exposure.htm
I am a woman and I live in Iran. I am a photographer and this is the
only thing I know how to do. I began work after completing my studies.
Quite by accident, the subjects of my first two series were ‘women’.
However, every time I think about a new series, in a way it still
relates to women.
Perhaps the only idea outsiders have of Iranian women is a black chador.
I try to portray all our aspects. And this completely depends on my own
situation. When I did this series of photographs, I had just graduated.
The duality of life at that time provided the motive: one cannot say to
what time the woman belongs; a photograph from two eras; a woman who is
dazed; a woman who is not connected to the objects in her possession.
After marriage it was natural that vacuum cleaners and pots and pans
found their way into my photographs; a woman with a different look; a
woman who, no matter in what part of the world she is living, still has
these kinds of apprehensions. At this moment a woman is consigned to a
daily repetitive routine. For this reason I named the series Like Every
Day.
Now I know what I wish to say with my photographs. Many of them have
shown women as second-class citizens or the censorship of women. I wish
to continue speaking about women because I still have a lot to say.
These are my words as a woman and the words of all the other women who
live in Iran, where being a woman imposes its own unique system. The
photographs are not authentic documentation. I take them in my studio,
but they deal with current social issues all the same.
Shadi Ghadirian, Iran
