Today at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is the opening of a landmark exhibition of photographs by 12 contemporary women artists from Iran and the Arab world. She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World challenges stereotypes surrounding the people, landscapes and cultures of the region, and provides insight into political and social issues. These provocative works, most created within the last decade, range in genre from portraiture to documentary to staged narratives.
She Who Tells a Story explores themes of identity, war, occupation and protest. It refutes the conventional idea that Arab and Iranian women are oppressed or powerless, illuminating the fact that women are creating some of the most significant photographic work in the region today. The exhibition features artists Jananne Al-Ani, Boushra Almutawakel, Gohar Dashti, Rana El Nemr, Lalla Essaydi, Shadi Ghadirian, Tanya Habjouqa, Rula Halawani, Nermine Hammam, Rania Matar, Shirin Neshat and Newsha Tavakolian.
The title of the exhibition was inspired by the Arabic word rawiya, which means “she who tells a story.” It is also the name of a small collective of women photographers based in the Middle East, which was founded in 2009. Each artist in the exhibition offers a vision of the world she has witnessed, and each image invites viewers to confront their own preconceptions.
The artists and their work are presented within categories that show photographers deconstructing the stereotypes of Orientalism, constructing subjects’ identities and creating new forms of documentary. Many of the photographers explore questions of identity through an evolving set of narratives, often in response to cultural stereotypes surrounding the Middle East.
EXHIBITION
She Who Tells a Story
Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World
From April 8th to July 31st, 2016
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20005-3970
United States
http://www.nmwa.org
