By Tahereh Emami; translated by Roya Monajem (source:
Tavoos Art Magazine)
An exhibition of portraits of Iranian Women after removal of obligation of
wearing chador under the reign of Pahlavi I, titled Before Your Eyes
was held in May 2011 at No.6 Gallery in Tehran. The collection was compiled and
reproduced by Parisa Mandan, photographer, researcher and teacher.
The displayed works make up a part of the photographs Parisa Mandan revived
during her project of finding and collecting photo archives of old photographers
of the city of Esfahan from 1991 to 2000.
As a part of her research, she reproduced photo glasses of the photography
studios of Mirza Mehdi Khan Chehreh Nama', Gholamhosseyn Derakhshan, Abolqasem
Jala (calling his studio Sharq) and of Minas Pa't Kerhanian and others, and
prepared them for publication.
The displayed photographs were a part of the above collection which did not
receive the required permit for publication, but were allowed to be shown at an
exhibition held exclusively for women.
They are all portraits which as mentioned in the catalogue of the exhibition
show "Women in the studio, acting the poses and gestures their male
photographers instructed. Though they appear yielding, nevertheless it is
evident that going to a photography studio and sitting in front of the
camera must have been according to their own personal will and decision,
thus the choice of their outfits and make- up must have been according to
their own conscious choice too.
Photographs as Historical Documents
The photos can be looked upon as a document of social status of women during
the transition period of transfer of power from the Qajar to Pahalavi.
Considering the style of hair dressing and self-chosen outfit of women in these
photos, one can assume that most were taken during the reign of Reza Shah
Pahlavi.
It seems in that period, graceful, serene tender poses devoid of violence
were preferred. Softy curved hands, arms touching the body and feet close to
each other, in some cases hand under the chin in a sitting or recline position
were among current postures. Tame women in the way men love.
Recordings of the Camera
There are several very interesting points in the 22 photos displayed at this
exhibition: Most women have curled their short hairs with the kind of
hairdressing instruments prevalent at the time, all wear mostly white thick
stockings, with high hilled shoes differing very little. In some photos they
have the kind of eyebrows fashionable under the Qajar, extremely wide and long
with or without woad (traditional eyebrow liner).
Their dresses are usually so thin that their underwear and handmade bras can
be seen. This shows that it is the period when lining and priming was not
fashionable yet. In one or two photos their dresses are quite transparent. One
can see that there have been women in that period too who wished to have their
photos taken with dresses different from the rest, or maybe some of these
photographs, with inviting poses were taken for definite purposes.
There are a few photos showing women in a place other than a photography
studio. Here they are mostly seen next to their family or their husbands with
more natural poses. In a satirical photo, a man and a woman have dressed up like
a dervish and sa'qi (bartender) and in one, a very beautiful
woman with gorgeous body, may be a foreigner is seen wearing a short nightgown
sitting leisurely on an armchair next to a clean bed, smiling. In another photo
a woman is seen wearing a swimming suit of the type fashionable in Europe in
those days, though at the same time wearing long stockings with a long lace
covering her shoulders.
In some photos, women are seen next to dolls. For example, in one of them is
a toy-dog like those pet dogs French women had in those days and in another
photo a woman is seen with several foreign made dolls next to her.
Considering the fact that during the pre and post WWI, a doll factory was
built by foreigners (most probably Russians) in the city of Ardebil, northwest
of Iran for export of dolls and there is still an alleyway in Ardebil called Toy
- meaning wedding in Turkish besides its literal English meaning - and
considering the special material used in these dolls, we can assume that these
women and their families were rich enough to purchase expensive export goods or
had travelled abroad bringing them back as souvenir, or maybe received them as
presents from some family members coming back from abroad. If true, then one can
conclude that they were enthusiastic to be familiar with certain aspects of
western culture and modernism and by displaying these dolls next to themselves,
they perhaps wished to emphasize on this cultural point, if not showing off.
One of the most interesting examples of this collection shows a decent
graceful lady reading a book and another shows a young woman wearing a guipure
or lace underwear lying down with her hand under her head holding an enlarged
photograph of two men in her other hand, and another similar photograph is seen
on the floor. She is wearing round glasses resembling those which Sadeq Hedayat
(well-known Iranian author) used to wear.
Two large photos of this exhibition were gorgeous showing two very beautiful
women, very chic for the time in places other than a studio. A copy of both
was given to anybody interested. The range of price of these photos varied
from 400000 to 1700000 dollars.
The Atmosphere
Most visitors went around and looked at the photos several times; some young
girls enlivened to discover a hole in the socks of one of the women of the
photographs. Famous photographers like Maryam Zandi, Niyousha Tavakolian and
Hengameh Golestan were among the first visitors and other artists including
painters, actresses, theater directors, dress designers, authors, translators
and poets arrived one after the other.
The ministry of Islamic Guidance issued the permit for the exhibition on the
condition that men do not visit it, which was politely mentioned on the
invitation card and the notice seen outside the gallery as Men Are Not Allowed.
Considering that most of these brave avant-garde females seem to be women
living with democrat men, they had the courage 'to swim opposite to the
current', as the saying goes. All must be dead by now, thus intensifying the
research aspect of the displayed photographs, representing a document about the
transition period when the society was moving from traditionalism to modernity
with the middles class just taking shape; as this was a fact known to all
visitors, it seemed strange that men were not allowed to visit the exhibition.
One can ask if a male researcher had carried out the same project and had
discovered these lasting photographs, would he then be forbidden to continue his
research just because the subject under study was women?
No doubt, the social history and documents of each country belongs to all the
people of that country. It is not possible to draw line in history or make it
forbidden for half the society to stop learning about some past historical
documents for gender reasons or deprive them of the freedom to see such
documents.
About Parisa Damandan
Born in 1967, Parisa is a photography graduate, photographer, and researcher
of the history of photography.
She began her artistic career with social
documentary photography and held a few exhibitions inside and outside Iran
including Portraits, Human
Being and Labor, Steel Miners of Nakhlak Mine, With Gulf Shores Dwellers,
Tehran's Youth Prison and Bashagard.
As the milieu of documentary photography narrowed down, she appealed to
research since 1993 with the aim of preservation of old endangered
photography archives. In addition to collecting photographs of old
photographers of Esfahan, she organized the photography collections of Ernst
Holster, German telegraph specialist and photographer found in Tehran's
Center of Documents of Cultural Inheritance, cleaning and collecting photos
from ruined photography studios in Bam after the earthquake, carrying out an
experimental project in the British Library, organizing a photography
collection, creating a digital bank of visual information and documents on
the great contemporary Iranian poet Ahmand Shamlu.She has also translated and published
John Berjer's Another Way of Telling and Instant Light:
Tarkovski's Polaroids into Farsi.
Gallery No.
6
No 6, 18th st, Kheradmand-e Shomali, Tehran
... Payvand News - 06/09/11 ... --
