Abstract

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran ‘disappeared’ from the international community for more than 3 decades. In recent years, this nation has been in the limelight for its ambiguous nuclear program and its negative image is further deteriorated by President Ahmadinejad’s belligerent rhetoric against the West and Israel which strike fear in the hearts of many about a possible military confrontation.

Think of Iran and some of us would not fail to conjure up images of hysterical Iranians chanting slogans such as “Down with USA” or submissive women draped in black chadors – an embodiment of religious fanaticism and austerity.

With an aim of dispelling these clichés, I traveled to Iran in 2006 to see the reality behind this curtain of secrecy and I discovered that there is definitely much more to Iran than those oft-repeated images we see in the media.

This fuelled me to embark on a project to ‘probe behind the veil’ by documenting the complexity and diversity of the people and culture from the Caspian Sea region to the Persian Gulf for the past 5 years.

I have witnessed how some Iranians live a life of duality, of how they have to conform to Islamic rules in public which is in sharp contrast to how they can be themselves at home or in their own private spaces. The ‘metamorphosis’ of their personas from the public to private realm is one of my focus. While one cannot deny that there are still factions of Iranian society who strive to uphold the strict tenets of Islamic laws, there are many who rebelled behind closed doors and tasted fruits which are forbidden.

Another major aspect of my work is to show how Iranians, especially those born after the 1979 Islamic revolution, rebel against the regime. Living under the tight constraints of Sharia Laws where the freedom of speech is virtually non-existent, some youth defy convention by dating secretly or holding private parties where unrelated male and female mingle. Disgruntled with the high rate of unemployment, some young people also indulge in drugs and secret alcohol binges.

Through my ‘eyes’ and my work, I hope to shed light on the situation in contemporary Iran. That though we may live under different governmental systems and culture, we have a universal yearning for freedom. That by ‘unveiling Iran’, I want to highlight the fact that we are not that different after all and that we all want to live our lives the way we want.