About Iran
What are the discriminatory experiences that I have had as a Baha'i woman living in Iran?
Since these discriminations don't exist in most of countries nowadays, I think a little bit of backstory of my life and experiences can be helpful for understanding my artworks better.
Maral Rasti, a friend of mine and a member of Baha'i faith in Iran who has been imprisoned because of her beliefs wrote this writing in a diary she kept in the prison:
What would it be like if I had never experienced being a minority?
Imagining this life is a bit strange and out of perspective for me. I was never able to plan for the future. What does a life you don’t have to worry about for your upcoming seconds even look like? For example, how is it like to go to a party and not worry about the police’s attack and all of us getting arrested?
Even simpler: how is it like not seeing your mobile phone as a spy? How is it to marry very easily or decide to open a beautiful flower shop at the end of that street with beautiful trees during the fall? Or a café on top of that gallery. How can you be a minority and not follow the news? To not to hear, see and fear different sentences. What is it like to feel belonged, to people who don’t know you, to a country whose doors are closed to you and to a government oppressing you? Would I ever go to jail if I was not a minority? Would I ever think of the possibility of going to jail? So why do I know going to jail since I’ve known myself? Places of business being closed, graveyards being destroyed, being deprived of higher education, confiscation of home, …, being marginalised and being a minority.
I cannot imagine not being a minority as this label has been with me from the very beginning. But what would it be like if…?
Me, wearing compulsory hijab in Iran.
You can get arrested and get imprisoned for not wearing a hijab outside of your house.
My mom, holding my dad's freedom letter from the prison.
My dad was arrested and imprisoned for 10 months because of his beliefs.
Baha'is don't have basic human rights in Iran.
Baha'i prayers written by my dad during his imprisonment.
Through the years of my childhood the police attacked our house multiple times, confiscated our belongings for investigation and arrested one of my parents everytime.
My house in a village in the North of Iran, where I was living with my ex boyfriend and a male friend. We all got arrested because of living in the same house, since it's against the law to live and have sex with someone from the opposite sex that you are not married to.
Me and some of my friends in high school. I was banned from entering the universities in Iran because of being a Baha'i. As a deprived of education person in Iran I got my Bachelor's degree from an underground university named Baha'i Institute for Higher Education. An institute found in 1987 as a response to the discriminatory practices of Iran's government against the Bahai's.