Photography Exhibition on Women in Iran

Free as a bird. That’s li’l ole me. The very thought of someone dictating my dress code or telling me what to think or how to be, sends a delicate shudder up my spine. Which is why I so admire free-thinking, spirited women — even if they are ‘parde ke peechhe’.

I took my (imaginary) hijab off to Marjane Satrapi when I saw ‘Persepolis’. And when I heard that Tasveer was displaying the work of Shadi Ghadirian in saadi Dilli, I simply had to hoof off to Vadehra. Shadi, by the way, is a top contemporary Iranian photographer who grew up in post-Revolution Iran. The subjects of the 42 works on display are Iranian women, but the themes are universal.

Take the stunning series ‘Like Everyday’. Women have pots, pans and steam irons for faces; one heck of a clever way to say how totally we are identified by the domestic appliances we use. Now that’s what I call hitting the frying pan on the head!

The tension between tradition and modernity comes through beautifully in the series ‘Qajar’– I loved the one of two women posing decorously, their bodies and faces completely covered. The photographer pokes gentle fun at the censors through the coloured images of women in Western dress — their ‘illegal’ bits (read uncovered heads, bare arms and legs) — rudely blacked out with marker in the ‘West by East’ set.

Shadi’s subjects may be faceless, but they tell eloquent stories. And these stories are told and retold all over the world. In ‘Slumdog’ season where hope triumphs over adversity, the images I want on my walls are the ethereal, delicate ones from the series ‘Be Colorful’ — ‘forbidden’ colours shimmering beneath the haze of anonymity. Now all I have to do is learn how to say ‘Jai Ho! ‘ in Persian!

At the Vadehra art gallery, D-140, Defence Colony. Ph: 24622545. Timings: 11 am till 7 pm. Sunday closed. On till March 13.; Curated by Tasveer. www.tasveerarts.com. Call Pooja: 9871381167.