Iran's series
by Dorsa Hadikhanlou
bachelor of fine arts, photography major
Fourth Year | Graduation year: 2023
Dorsa Hadikhanlou, White, Green, and Red from Iran’s series, 2022. (Images courtesy Dorsa Hadikhanlou)
Dorsa Hadikhanlou, White from Iran’s series, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 60.96 x 45.72 cm. (Image courtesy Dorsa Hadikhanlou)
Dorsa Hadikhanlou, Green, from Iran’s series, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 60.96 x 45.72 cm. (Image courtesy Dorsa Hadikhanlou)
Dorsa Hadikhanlou, Red, from Iran’s series, 2022. Archival inkjet print, 60.96 x 45.72 cm. (Image courtesy Dorsa Hadikhanlou)
Dorsa Hadikhanlou. (Image courtesy Dorsa Hadikhanlou)
About the Artist
Iranian-based photographer Dorsa Hadikhanlou is now living in Vancouver, BC.
Dorsa has been practicing her skills around the combination of fashion, politics, race and feminism. Her inspiration for most of her works is the women of Iran and Iranian people in general.
She lived in Tehran, Iran until the age of 18 and then migrated to Vancouver. Since then, she has been developing her photography skills to represent herself and the women of Iran and try to be Iran’s voice.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
A few months ago, in my home city Tehran, an innocent girl died by
the hands of police beaten to death and the reason you may ask, the
reason was that she wasn’t wearing her hijab properly, so her punishment
was to be captured and beaten and then die.
As an Iranian woman I am used to this attitude by the police. I’ve
been escaping Islamic police since I was ten years old. Me and women of
Iran are tired, frustrated, and overwhelmed. I’m happy that women are
finally starting to stand up for themselves and their rights.
As an Iranian young artist, it is my duty to reflect on this
mortality. I feel responsible to dedicate my art to all the Iranian
women who are living in horror and suffocation.
In these series of photos, I am exploring my ideas and technical
abilities to bring attention to female silence, the silence that if
breaks it kills. Death is just around the corner waiting for women to
speak. Women who should bloom like beautiful flowers, but the miserable
regime executes and kills them. Anger is the main emotion brought up in
the photos. Then sadness, horror, and frustration.
This series was made by making models uncomfortable in front of
camera to bring real frustration into attention. The three of pictures
in the series are self portraits. One of the biggest challenges in this
project was to put myself in front of camera. As a photographer I was
used to being behind the camera not in front of it. By doing that, I
wanted to capture my own frustration as a Persian woman revealing
herself to a camera instead of shying away from the camera in order to
show coming out and showing my body.
This series took almost three months to make and includes more that just four photos. However, the most successful photos were these three photos next to each other with three different colors of backdrops showing the flag of Iran. The white backdrop in the middle photo has been blackened in order to work as apposite of peace and a representation of death.
All these photographs represent the struggle women are having and how their hair, body and face can be the reason of their deaths.