Perrott, LisaHardy, AnnNourmohammadi, Neda2019-05-282019Nourmohammadi, N. (2019). Revitalising the representation of Iranian women: A critical and creative exploration of gendered identity in the contemporary art of Iran. (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)). The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12569https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12569Iranian women have been at the centre of many socio-political changes and challenges during the long history of their country. During those changes, the actualisation of their roles has nevertheless been constrained by religiously-based traditions: both ancient and recently-developed. The representation of women’s lives, whether carried out by artists within or outside Iran, has also been a factor that mis-represents what the lives and aspirations of Iranian women, particularly contemporary Iranian women, are like. They have frequently been depicted in stereotypical ways, covered with ‘the veil’, evoking connotations of oppression, segregation, and victimisation. The global media’s circulation of a small range of images of Iranian society, coupled with Iranian artistic and cultural producers choosing to represent Iranian women by using the same motifs as Islamic propagandists, arguably produces the impression of a lack of subjectivity and dynamicity in female identities in particular. These burdensome representational practices frustrate many Iranians but can only be discussed explicitly once an individual, such as myself, is outside the context of Iran. This qualitative research project includes a creative practice component and is set out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an autoethnographic approach. This approach draws on my personal experiences and points of view on different subjects raised from the research data. The practical component of this research involves an exhibition of my art-making practice engaging with the themes that emerged from my research data. Theoretically and practically, my research project is inspired by real events in the everyday life of Iranian society and my own life experience. I hoped to revitalise the representations of Iranian women with dynamic and subjective aspects of identities. The data in this research were collected in four stages. Firstly, I interviewed a number of Iranian women artists based inside and outside Iran to understand the main influences on my participant artists’ productions, and the ways in which these artists engage with social, political, ethnic, and gendered themes. Secondly, I asked the artists to provide me with one of their works they thought best exemplified their practice. I analysed these works using a Social Semiotic approach to understand how the participant artists represented identities in Iranian society, particularly those of women. Thirdly, I showed my participant artists’ works to different focus-groups to understand how they developed narratives about them that were sometimes similar to mine and sometimes different. And finally, I created a series of artworks to explore ways to associate expressions of a diasporic Iranian female identity with a more of subjective sense of ‘self’. The interview data revealed that the artists in my research sample and I share similar viewpoints about Iranian women’s identities in relation to social and political subjects; however, our strategies in approaching these subjects through art differ in some cases. Using Social Semiotics, my analysis of the visual data showed the complexity of the ways in which artists in my sample approached female subjects through their works; subsequently, the focus-group data also revealed complex interpretations of the artworks of my research sample among the members of different groups. Nevertheless, the combined findings from these stages showed significant parallels between the veil as an Islamic religious sign and discourses around ‘Muslim Women’ as being oppressed and obedient in patriarchal societies. By critically reviewing the analysis of my research data and relating them to my theoretical framework, I build the conceptual structure of my autoethnographic practice. Inspired by the works of artists in my sample, in my practice, I explored progressive ways to construct female subjects as having agency in relation to political themes and alternative positions. Ultimately, this research project suggests that the logical framework of an academic context offers a ground for conceptualising progressive strategies for representing gendered Iranian identity.enAll items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.Thesis2019-05-14