Threads of Freedom intertwines materials and narratives in photography to question traditional representations of women in the Middle East. This project shares stories of Iranian women using the photographs they have taken of themselves during the recent uprising and protests in Iran. At the time, photographers were prohibited from documenting the uprising, and many who tried to take photos were arrested. So, selfies became a way to document and resist. Women photographed themselves while removing and/or burning their headscarves in the street to show defiance and to reclaim the public spaces that had been stolen from them for almost a half-century.
I conceived this project and its process as a form of protest, a way to resonate with the struggle. Residing outside my country and unable to participate in protests, I found myself overwhelmed and empowered by the images of young, brave women. I collected and printed their images on silk and dismantled the fabric by removing individual threads by hand. Then, I layered the images to create new compositions and to reveal and connect the stories embedded in each photograph. Throughout history, fabric was utilized to simultaneously conceal, beautify, and objectify women's bodies. In Iran, women's bodies and hair have been veiled with fabric for centuries. In Threads of Freedom, fabric becomes a surface that reveals women's bodies instead of covering them, and the threads of the fabric reweave their shared stories.
