Unknown by Maneli Aygani May 2012

Lady: Unknown

By Maneli Aygani May 2012

“My dear teacher! Do we not enjoy freedom of thought? Yes, we do!” From Taj Saltaneh, Memoir book

4 1

Lady: Unknown1

Prologue,

This is an essay for an art exhibition with the same name, which is created in appreciation for the effort and courage of women, who stand for their own and other’s rights. As an

Iranian-born woman, my aim in this series is to challenge the stereotypical definitions of gender in my culture, and also to minimize and break free from my own fear and anger. I am interested to see how people with other cultural backgrounds will interpret the visual work and relate it to their own experience. Given the broad reality of discrimination across the world, I expect my works may gain the viewer’s sympathy, but sympathy is not enough for me; my main goal is to encourage viewers to become aware of things that might not have their full attention.

1 Lady Unknown (Banoo Nashenaas) was the nickname for one of the famous Iranian female singers in 1950s; because singing for women had been and still is an unconventional action, she had taken this nickname to keep her identity private. Her real name was Farahdokht Abbasi Taleqani and later was known as “Pooran.”

1 I was born and raised in Tehran in a culture with many contradictions. On the one hand, it is a culture with conservative traditions, discrimination, and social restrictions due to religion and Government. On the other hand, an inspiring culture still exists in Iran and has a great influence on people’s everyday life. A considerable part of this inspiration emerges from Iranian literature and poetry. Restrictions have paradoxically made Iran a fertile literary culture, as writers sought ways to avoid censorship. The literature has generally taken many different approaches in using metaphors and symbolism to write about topics that could not be approached directly. Whether sarcastic or revolutionary, the use of metaphor always reveals a circular history of societal restrictions from which

Iran has never escaped. As the generations of writers show, the country has confronted these circumstances for centuries, making metaphorical language a natural part of communicating in people’s daily lives. Growing up in this society, I became interested in such complexity and its appearance in art.

After moving to the United States to attend graduate school, I started continuously comparing the two cultures. Noticing the relative freedom people in the US have, I became more critical of my country’s unfair and prejudicial laws. Iran is not the only country struggling with contraventions of human rights, but I have a deeper understanding of the present issues in Iran than I do of any other country as I spent most of my life there. Given the contrast between the two cultures, there were many questions simultaneously coming to my mind as I began to incorporate my critical feelings into my artwork: Am I being fair enough? Do I need to be more cautious since I am representing a culture to another? Can I only think of my own points? How are these thoughts are

2 going to be perceived? Am I being just like the “stereotypical Media” that indicates others corruptions to blur its own? These questions seemed to grow every day, yet none of these felt relevant to what I wanted from my work. It left me wondering how I was going to be able to create art, given the political complexity of the topics.

Last summer as I was visiting a friend in Tehran I was asked what my background was. Initially I started answering his question by climbing up my honorable family tree! I told him that I was the seventh grandchild of Karim Khan Zand, a ruler of Iran in the eighteenth century,2 and also somehow related to the Qajar dynasty. As he was listening to my story, my new friend started to mock me about my great speech and important family lineage, noticing that I only mentioned the men in my family history. Then he asked me if with all the pride I had for the luminous background did I know the artist/writer Taj Saltaneh, daughter of Nasir aldin Shah Qahar3? He was right to point out my inherent chauvinism. I didn’t know who she was. How could I? I never learned about her in any of my history classes. The conversation turned out to be a pivotal one, as I began to research this woman and what Iranian history she came from.

My recent work takes inspirations from Qajar art. The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Iran from 1785 to 1925. The period was characterized by general illiteracy, social class differences, luxurious rulers who were incapable but also art loving, as well as the sparks of constitutional revolution and the beginning of modern Iran. In my recent art I have tried to bring my concerns and ideas about current gender discriminations and stereotypes in contemporary Iran through the use of Qajar historical references, aesthetics, and symbols.

2 Karim Khan Zand (1705- 1779) was a ruler of Iran, and the founder of the Zand Dynasty. He never styled himself as "shah" or king, and instead used the title Vakil e- Ra'aayaa (Representative of the People). 3Taj Saltaneh is also known as Zahra Khanoum Tadj es-Saltaneh (1883 - 25 January 1936), Daughter of Nasir Al din Shah Qajar.

3 The start of women’s social movements is rooted in the support and explanatory writings

by unconventional characters and writers such as Taj Saltaneh and Bibi Khanoom

Estarabadi. Taj Saltaneh was one of the influential and striking female characters of Qajar

era. Taj introduced the idea of illiteracy as the main reason for women’s pain and

distress, and argued for the necessity of education for women to have better social lives.

She was one of Qajar dynasty princesses and the daughter of Naser Al-Din Shah Qajar4.

She wrote a memoir book, which is written as a series of candid anecdotes as told to her

painting teacher in which she describes her observations. She discusses her viewpoint

about gender, women, and the impact of illiteracy in limiting women’s social lives, as

well as her opinions about political and social situations.

Figure 1Taj Portrait of Saltaneh-Unknown Artist

4 Nassir Al din Shah, was the King of Iran from September 17, 1848 to May 1, 1896 when he was assassinated.

4 In her book, she describes her observations as a harem girl. The following passage describes a “game” in which the Shah would invite the women in his harem to beat each other after dark:

One of the games which I was particularly fond of and never missed watching whenever it was played was one invented by my father and called “lights out.” There were a hundred or so gas lamps in the andarun, but the electric lamps was a recent invention and all the royal mansions had been equipped with it. The venue of the game was the White Hall; my father had chosen it because it was large and spacious. Whenever the game was to be played, the ladies would be informed in the afternoon that there would be “lights out” that night. Respectable women and ladies of birth usually demurred, considering it a great loss of dignity for themselves. The others, however, were keenly interested and would begin to play with immense enjoyment. This game, so important, so loved by all, was outwardly a childish pastime. In reality my father had serious objectives in promoting it: first, he wanted to know everything about the inner workings of the harem; second, he wanted to know which ladies were enemies and which were friends. This was the best way for him to find out. The ladies not only failed to catch on to his true intentions at first, but even at the end they had no idea what he was trying to accomplish. On the surface of it, the game seemed to them no more than an imaginative diversion.

The game consisted of turning out the lights. In the dark the women had absolute freedom and license to kiss each other, beat each other, bite each other, blind each other, or break each other’ heads and limbs. At the beginning of the game the ladies would all sit in the middle of the hall, talking among themselves, my father would sit on a chair near the light switch. As they were busy in their conversation, he would turn out the

5 light. Suddenly all hell would break loose. Screams, cries for help, oaths, curses and wailing would be heard everywhere. Everyone was up to something. The dignified ones crept into corners or hide under a bench, a table or a chair to find safety. The wild ones doled out and received their beating. Of course, as you know, it is the wicked who form the majority. Amid this pandemonium of kneeing and wailing whose effect was heightened by the absolute darkness -- presenting a bizarre spectacle by the observer, as of a corner in hell in which a thousand perils awaited man -- the lights would suddenly come back on, catching everybody in some act. Usually the clothes would be ripped to shreds, the faces and cheeks bloody, the bodies obscenely exposed; the beating had been so severe that the largest stitch of clothing on anyone was no bigger than a quarter meter. The women’s faces were grotesque, their hair disheveled, their eyes bloodshot and filled with rage. As for those who had preferred caution, they were a strange sight to behold, hiding under tables and chairs with their arms and legs thrust out.

The wonder of all was this: as soon as the light was turned on everyone began to laugh, and the game would begin all over again. After some two or three hours of this game, my father would finally take royal compassion on the bruised and battered participants; those who dressed had been shredded beyond use would be honored with money for new clothes. The session concluded, the poor women would scatter to go home, where they attended to their appearance until morning. I am amazed that when it was time to resume the game, they were eagerly prepared, and gleefully submitted to an orgy of punching and kicking.5

5 Taj Saltaneh, Crowning Anguish, preparing for Jubilee, 1993, 195.

6 Some of these anecdotes have influenced my work. For instance, Megaphone is inspired by the recent passage by Taj. The relationship between the two central figures serves as a metaphor of the communication between two eras.

Figure 2 Mahd O'lia, Nassiredin Shah's Mother

Where Taj Saltaneh left behind a frank and revealing memoir of life in the harem, her contemporary BiBi Khanoom Estarabadi (1859–1921) is known being one of the pioneer figures of women’s movements. Khanoom was an intellectual and liberal woman during the Qajar dynasty. She was significant as the founder of a school for young girls, for writing articles on the necessity of their literacy, and for arguing over those articles with

Shia pastorates who accused her of being a pagan for writing them. BiBi’s most important work was writing a satire in response to an essay, written by an unknown Qajar prince, called T’adib al Nesvan, or “Disciplining Women”. Khanoom’s book is titled

8 M’ayebu Rejal or Faults of Men. Filled with satire and humor, the book in one hand responds to T’adib al Nesvan’s essay and on the other hand portrays men gatherings.

Both of the books I just mentioned seem to be relatively straightforward descriptions of reality, in the harem and of men’s gatherings. Yet as I wrote in my introduction, Iranian history is ingrained with contradictions, producing a heavily symbolic and metaphorical art and literature that have always been separate from the reality of Iran. Artists and writers enriched their work with symbolism to safely be critical, often using the imaginary to create what they are not allowed to create in reality. Oddly enough, this has also been true in the case of representations of women created under male rulers as well.

For instance, the bare-breasted women in Qajar paintings likely reflect Iranian men’s perception of European women, since tradition forbade Iranian women from being publicly viewed.

According to Afsaneh Najmabadi’s essay “Reading for Gender Through Qajar Painting”

(1998), the representation of women in Qajar paintings is different than the “real” women in that era. The representation of women is more a form of male fantasy and gaze.

The subject of women in Qajar paintings presents us with a curious

picture: we have abundance of representations of women from the realm

of male fantasy and pleasure but very few representations of real women.

9 Moreover, in the same essay Najmabadi quotes a discussion by Ellison Findly about a painting of Nour Jahan, the last wife of Jahanigir Shah who was a Mogul emperor. In this particular painting Nour Jahan seems to be a petite since she has been depicted with her husband Jahangir. However, in other paintings in which she is represented solely, she is not a petite figure. It seems that her smallness is relative to her husband’s bigness, or to visualize his greatness. Najmabadi also notes,

I do not want to imply that there is a neat, simply discernible line that

divides these two categories of representation—women of fantasy and real

women. The referent for the former is a different reality – that of the male

sexual imagination and unconscious. These representations, unlike those

of the second category, make little claim to realism; toward the end of the

nineteenth century and beginning decades of the twentieth, we do find

more representations of real women and fewer of the fantastic. This

development is partly related to movement of women into public spaces,

which at once made public representations of fantasy women somewhat

embarrassing.

The impact of those images, aside from the incredible intricate and delicate aesthetic, reminds me of the way current media uses propaganda to represent its own ideals, which again come from a group with a specific mindset and goals and the power to institutionalize representations. These are some of the concerns that motivate my own series of art images. In my prints I have tried to show the contradiction between beauty

10 and intricacy with the harshness of the reality in contemporary Iranian society, which often has roots in the Qajar era, and sometimes even older than that.

According to the few available documents, Iranian women started their societal movements for liberation in the late Qajar era, during early nineteenth century. The

Persian Constitutional Revolution, which took place from 1905 to 1907, is by some interpretations known as the beginning of Iranian contemporary history, and led to the establishment of a parliament in Iran. Women’s overt political actions during the

Constitutional Revolution are very few. However, underground women’s movements, which are still known as the semi-secret women’s council today, did have a deep impact.

In his book Strangling of Persia, Morgan Shuster, who was an American financial adviser to Iranian government during that time, praises women’s contribution to the constitutional movement development of agency: “Overnight [they] became teachers, newspaper writers, founders of women’s clubs, and speakers on political subjects.”6

Since their anonymity protected them, Shuster describes the women’s effort as “a great, though secret influence,” stating, “To this day I know neither their names nor the faces of the leaders of this group, but in a hundred different ways I learned from time to time that

I was being aided and supported by the patriotic fervor of thousands of the weak sex.”7

Iranian women showed their presence in cultural, political, and social scene as well as uprising for their rights. Even though the influences have been historically distorted,

6 As cited in Afary, Janet. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911. New York, Colombia Unversity press, 1996. 7 Ibid., 186 .

11 women had a lot of impact on constitutional8 revolution’s progress. For instance, the emergence of private associations and underground organizations created by women during and after the constitutional revolution was pivotal. Although the associations did not reach many of their goals at the time such as the suffrage for women, the first sparks of the later achievements happened during that time.

Founded by a group of intellectual and liberal women, Patriotic Women's League was established in 1922 and was one of the most well known organizations of the time for women rights. It was founded by a group of intellectual and liberal women. The main goal of this organization was women rights propagation and conditions for young girls.

8 The Constitutional Revolution took place between 1905 and 1907. The revolution led to the establishment of a parliament in Iran.

Figure 3 Board of directors of Jamiate Nesvan Vatankhah (Patriotic Women’s League)

The Patriotic women’s league was the last women association that closed in the time of

Suppression of publications and national parties by the order of Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was Iran’s king, and the originator of Pahlavi dynasty, and who took over after Qajar dynasty’s fall in 1925.

Before I continue I want to also note that regardless of the governmental forces and segregated social conventions, individual and liberal men also supported women’s movements toward liberalization. For instance, male artists, poets, journalists, and sometimes delegates turned out to be women movement supporters. Among them,

13 Aliakbar Dehkhoda9, Iraj Mirza10, Lahuti11 and Mirzadeh Eshghi12 put a lot of effort.

Also some of the newspapers such as Sur-i-Israfil, Habl-al-Matin, Musavat, and Iran-i- naw supported women movements.

In my research, I found similarities between predominant beliefs during Qajar era and contemporary theories of empowered groups, for example the opinion of the both groups on women’s limited scope of abilities and rights for social activities. The main idea of my work is the irony of this similarity since the society has changed during the historical gap between the two eras. I also found it enlightening to learn how different factors, such as religion, traditions, and government forces, can have an impact on the progress of one movement.

The One Million-Signature Campaign

In 2006 a peaceful gathering in Tehran, by groups of people including human right activists and human rights lawyers, ended quite violently by anti-riot army. Afterwards, the activist groups decided to establish a campaign for changing the discriminatory laws against women in Iran. The Campaign’s goal was to gain one million signatures in order to get misogynist laws changed. By declaring the laws unfair, this campaign tried to bring awareness to society. Not everyone was educated about these laws then and nor are they today. According to campaign officials’ statement, even though more than 60 percent of students attending university are women, they still face severe discrimination and are

9 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, was a prominent Iranian linguist, and author of the most extensive dictionary of the Persian language ever published. 10 Iraj Mirza, was a famous Iranian poet. He was a modern poet and his works are associated with the criticism of traditions. 11 Lahuti, was a Persian poet and political activist. 12 was a political writer and poet of Iran.

14 considered the second sex. In many societies there is a belief that laws should be a step ahead of the culture, to be able to make the culture improve. In Iran, however, the present imposed restrictive laws are more primitive than the culture and women status. 13 The misogynist laws not only are discriminatory for women, but they have also made the society unhealthy and obviously have caused problems for men as well.

According to Iranian penal codes, if a man and a woman become paralyzed as a result of an accident, the punitive damages provided to the woman according to law is half that of those provided to the man. If a man and a woman are both witness to a crime, the law does not recognize the woman as a legal witness, but the man can serve as one. The law allows men to take practice polygamy and gives them uncontested rights to divorce their wives at whim.14 These are only a few of the legal restrictions in place that keep women trapped in a secondary, dependent social status, despite the growing education and liberation of women themselves. As I go back to these contradictions, they stay with me like a stain that I am unable to remove and make me more eager to do something with them.

My father always wished we loved football, he is natural born football player who used to play for his college team and still plays every so often. Being surrounded by three women -- my mother, my sister and I -- who are not interested in football, he always asked why

13 http://www.feministschool.com/campaign/spip.php?article17 14 http://1million4equality.info/english/spip.php?article20

15 don’t you guys ever watch a game with me? There are many women Iran who are real football fans, and I think my dad had kind of bad luck on this one thing! But why would we be football fans? Women are prohibited to attend football matches in Iran, since the government has found stadiums atmosphere inappropriate for women. This story is the inspiration my etching My Father wished we loved Football, which references a mural from Zand-Qajar eras. In this print I turned bare-breasted women of the mural into goalkeepers.

Figure 4 Detail- Ceiling Iran, Shiraz. Unknown Artist. 1846.

Figure 5 Etching, Hand-Coloring. Maneli Aygani. 2012

I was a little girl when I took a trip to north of Iran, by the Caspian Sea, with friends and family. During this trip one activity was to swim in the sea, which was always delightful! The down side, however, was seeing a divider that separated men from women. I never quite understood why a male lifeguard was watching over both sections, practicing his duties at same time checking the girls out!

The Iranian women rights activist Mahboubeh Abbas Gholizadeh (b.1958) in her essay

“Women's studies and gender education in the Islamic Republic of Iran; change in favor or against women?”, divides the past 30 years of Iran after Islamic revolution into three decades: First, the revolutionary Islamization period; second, reform and economic- political development; and the third she calls new-fundamentalism. According to her, the impact of each of these periods is very important for making the current gender

17 stereotypes. In the recent Neo-fundamentalism decade the main difference with the two previous decades is institutionalizing gender fundamentalist policies in the government mechanism. The neo-fundamentalist theory was started by a group of fundamentalist clergymen and later turned to one of Ahmadinejad’s government’s predominant theories.

According to Gholizadeh, some of the primary neo-fundamentalist beliefs are: that male/female differences are natural, innate, and unchangeable. That justice requires the law to consider these natural differences between men and women. And that diagnosing the fairness of laws is up to God and humans are unable to understand them. Recently the government’s pressures have increased especially on women since seemingly one of the quick tricks for reaching the manifestations is by controlling women in the society.

A related issue is the control, censorship and repression that the government has had on artists and social activists. During the past couple of years, many artists, bloggers, and social activists have been threatened and jailed. Among those there are many young female individuals whose work is socially related and critical to the current situation. For instance, Tahmineh Monzavi, born in 1988, is a social documentary photographer. In a series called “Women in Grape Garden Alley,” she points to the homeless women who are cast from the society. Such women are typically overlooked in the press and media, so drawing attention to them in her art is important.

A similar lack of historical representation of women motivated my etching titled

Ancestress, which again referenced a Qajar painting, this time of a ruling ancestor.

Figure 6 Detail of a painting of Karimkhan Zand, Iran

As we see in the figure 8, which is a detail of a painting from Karimkhan Zand, and according to the short story I had in my introduction, this painting served as the partial basis for an etching I made. As a refreshing note, I have been told that I am the seventh grand child of Karimkhan Zand. In viewing him, I was curious how my ancestress would look like, knowing there would be no historical portraits of her; therefore I reversed the image of Karimkhan and turned it to my imaginary great grandmother.

Figure 7 Ancestress-Etching, Aquatint. 2012

I heard this story a couple of years ago back in Tehran; A decent middle aged scholar lady used to work as an editor at one of universities in Tehran, was called up to moral department and warned that she will get reproached if she wears high heels at work anymore, since high heel shoes are provocative for the male colleagues and inappropriate for the work environment. Since then the females employees came up with the idea of putting adhesive tape on the heels so they can’t be noticed.

20 The historical distress and complexities of contemporary Iran has made many artists interested in working with these subjects. Currently there are a number of artists who use historical art and literature as a substance to their work. For instance, Mehraneh Atashi references the thirteenth-century medieval Persion poet, Saadi’s literary piece in a recent video, titled Rose Garden. In the video, she creates an awkward, distant situation by reading one of Sadi’s poems by heart, noting that reading old poetry by heart is a common custom for the people in Iran.

Figure 8 Flower Garden- Video By Mehraneh Atashi

Also, artists such as Parviz Tanavoli, whose sculpture is inspired by Persian typography, creates the word “Heech,” which translates to “Nothing”; the work references the interpretation of “Heech” in Omar Khayyam’s poetry. There are many other artists such as Bahman Jalali, Sadegh Tirafkan, and Siamak Filizadeh, who have referenced Iranian ancient art, poetry, and pop culture in their artwork. It seems to be an important way to work out the contradictions within the culture, in artistic ways that hark back to the

21 centuries-long tradition of using metaphor and symbol to address real issues in a context that forbids or censors such direct discussion.

Figure 10 Heech Lovers- Fiberglass. By Parviz Tanavoli

These artists have not directly inspired my work; however, there is a way of approach that I have found similar and learned through my own process. The approach is basically to address difficult and complex cultural contradictions and tensions through elements of enjoyment, playfulness, and surprise. I use different disciplines depending on the concept that I have in mind and find each of these qualities in the process of creating the work.

Figure 11 a view from my thesis show, Nash Gallery, 2012

Figure 12 Ancestress I and II, Etching, Aquatint.2012

Figure 13 Lady Unknown, Earth ware, slip, under glaze, 2012

Figure 14 Jeweled Dagger, Single channel video, mute, 2.’23” -2012

Bibliography: 1- NajmAbadi, Afsaneh, et al. Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch 1785-1925. NY. Brooklyn Museum of Art. 1998 2- NajmAbadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles CA. University of California Press. 2005

3- Taj, Saltana. CROWNING AND ANGUISH: MEMORIES OF PERSIAN PRINCESS FORM THE HAREM TO MODERNITY, 1884-1914; INTRODUCING AND HISTORICAL NOTES, ABBAS AMANAT; Trans. VANZAN, ANA. NESHATI, AMIN. Mage publishers. 1993.

4-Afary, Janet. The Iranian Constitutional revolution, 1906-1911. Columbia University Press. 1996.

5- Women's studies and gender education in the Islamic Republic of Iran; change in favor or against women?.Abasgholizadeh, Mahboubeh. 2009. http://www.iran-women- solidarity.net/spip.php?article762

6- Bibi Khanoon and the anonymous prince. Nabavi, Ebrahim. 2006. http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/worldnews/story/2006/07/060722_mv-constitution-en- bibikhatun.shtml