A woman looks out at us, wearing the chador and holding the barrel of a gun against her face. She is defiant, determined, militant, brave. The title of the work, Rebellious Silence, evokes her quiet sense of power. Her steadfast gaze suggests conviction and belief. Across her face, in hand-drawn Farsi, is a feminist-focused poem that references the laws that came into play during the 1979 Iranian revolution, which still today require all Iranian women to wear the veil in public. “The written text is the voice of the photograph,” the artist, Shirin Neshat, said. “It breaks the silence of the still woman.”
Having lived in exile from Iran for 11 years, separated from her family, Neshat returned to the country of her birth in 1990. She had left as a teenager, when the foundations for the Islamic revolution were being laid, and continued her studies in the US. Upon her return, her country had been transformed.
