Since Mahsa Amini’s tragic death at the hands of Iran’s morality police, global awareness of Iranian women’s struggle under a totalitarian regime has deepened. For many, the protests that followed marked their first collective uprising, despite the constant threat of detainment and persecution. In Australia, Iranian women stood in solidarity, taking to the streets, yet often facing harassment—even from within their own communities. Collective Threads challenges the illusion that democratic societies are immune to oppression, exposing the fragility of rights and freedoms many take for granted. This exhibition provides both a refuge and a platform for resistance, allowing its sitters to reclaim their voices.
The project Collective Threads comprises of a visual exhibition of figurative paintings, a multimedia installation of recordings of the participating women as well as voice performances in song and poetry by the women painted for the project. The body of work will feature paintings of ten women as well as one man identifying with the LGBTQI+ community who are from Iran currently living in Australia. These portraits endeavour to exude strength and vulnerability in equal measure, confronting the viewer with their unflinching gaze. They are statuesque yet layered with emotional depth, embodying resilience and breaking free from imposed ideals of femininity. I seek to empower in response to suppression, a stark contrast to the roles imposed upon these participants since the 1979 revolution, where they have often been rendered voiceless and stripped of basic rights. These portraits celebrate autonomy and defiance.
The series will depict the sitters in profile, arranged in a circular installation, each facing the next. This configuration symbolises a chain of support and solidarity, as if each figure is passing words of encouragement to the other in a contemporary nod to the notion of a women’s circle—an echo of resilience and hope, reminiscent of the game of Telephone.
