Diary 29
WOMEN OF ALLAH
Shirin Neshat’s series, Women of Allah, has been at the center of my contemplations recently. Neshat investigates women’s identities in relation to the religious, social, and political landscape in the Middle East. It’s a collection of black-and-white images that utilize four distinct symbols to communicate: a veil, a gun, text, and a gaze. Through these images, Neshat is able to both document and explore shifts in Iranian culture, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Two things interest me most—
1. The script on each image is poetry. Neshat chose poems by female authors whose work specifically discusses the Islamic Revolution, and each poem provides a different, slightly nuanced perspective.
2. In a TedTalk, Neshat talks about women’s identities being barometers. Meaning, she’s been able to learn Iran’s history, assess the current state of the nation (while living in New York), and presumably, predict the future of Iran, by studying the way Muslim women conduct themselves. In this way, their identities are reflective of what’s occurring in the country; they move in tandem with their environment.
May 16th, 2022
One scene I’ve always found interesting is an object hidden within an overgrown landscape. Yesterday, it was a rusted Toyota Tacoma, sunken behind tall, gold grass alongside the freeway. A week before it was a mailbox, on an angle like someone had hit it with a baseball bat, planted in a neighbor’s untrimmed lawn. I’ve seen dilapidated buildings wrapped in vines. A camper shell in a dense meadow. Old boxcars in a prairie. Heavy machinery and kitchen appliances and other insane things people feel inclined to abandon in the wild. Something about these visuals seems to describe the concept of ‘surrendering’ to me; the objects engulfed by the ever-growing and ever-alive nature around them.
April 29th, 2022
It was the brutal nature of it all that arrested me. The plants and animals that withstood the environment an honest testimony to resilience. I felt the hot, dry wind on my skin like a leather whip and contemplated the time it would take for the desert to kill me, ruthless as it was. The spirit of the place was just so unforgiving. But that’s what made it intriguing. So I decided to stay.
Then, later, I was relieved by the smell of crushed sage in the hand, the red hills, and the chorus of coyotes at sunset. There was a small town where I stopped for water and a burger and sat outside, smelling the beef sizzling on the grill as smoke drifted through moonlight. Two long-haired women, both in braids, spoke in Spanish across from me.
Shirin Neshat “Faceless,” Women of Allah, 1994
