Iran in focus

Jan 14 2009 by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

Barbara Hodgson speaks to a pioneering photographer behind an exhibition putting Middle Eastern women in the spotlight.

AS A 16-year-old girl growing up in Iran, you might imagine few career options would be open to Newsha Tavakolian – least of all one which would bring the harsh realities of the world into sharp focus.

But after Newsha – clearly a determined teenager – discovered photography, it was just a matter of months before she was working as a photojournalist for a, now banned, women’s daily.

“I was one of the youngest to work on the newspaper for six to seven years,” recalls Newsha, now 28 and an award-winning photographer whose images, revealing little-seen aspects of Iranian women’s lives, are now on show at Side Gallery in Newcastle.

The newly-opened exhibition, Sisters in Chanel & Chador, is a colourful collection which challenges western assumptions about the Middle East.

There are, for instance, images capturing both the exuberance of coming-of-age girls wearing their chador – an Islamic garment covering everything but the face –and the misery masking the still faces of mothers of those killed in the 1980-88 Iran/Iraq war.

Then there’s a karate class, pictures of girls in a coffee shop where they smoke out of view of their families, and close-ups of a 50-year-old who’s undergone plastic surgery and of a protester – making a peace sign – against the death sentence meted out to a university professor.

Newsha, who now lives in the Iranian capital Tehran, is friendly and full of laughter when she talks and it’s not hard to understand how her subjects were only too willing to use her lens as a vehicle to tell their story.

In fact, Newsha reckons she has an easier job than a male photographer would have in her homeland. Where a man might have a door slammed in his face or risk incurring the suspicion, if not the wrath, of the women’s male relatives, she was given open access to many homes.

“It is better to be a woman photographer in Iran than a male photographer,” she says. “The women all trusted me and gave me the opportunity to spend time with them.”

Her family too, it seems, trusted those instincts of Newsha’s, even at 15. When she found herself gripped by photography after learning about it on a course – giving up on her previous ambition to be a singer – they “were very supportive”, even when she took control of the family’s only camera and set up a dark room in their home.

“I’ve a big family – there are four of us, my parents and my grandparents – and I could do whatever I wanted.”

Nevertheless, her two sisters and younger brother, did not follow her unconventional route, and you can’t help thinking her decision to end her formal education and take a creative path raised an eyebrow or two.

But young Newsha was hooked: she began printing her own black and white photographs and on the newspaper where she worked a male colleague showed her the ropes.

“He had lots of experience and really taught me how to think,” she says. “He taught me that it was not only about taking beautiful pictures but about what kind of message the picture had.”

That lesson, and the desire for her pictures to tell a story, has stayed with her throughout her work on a series of women’s and reformist dailies – all now banned.

Newsha has travelled widely in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with her pictures appearing in publications such as Time Magazine, Newsweek, Stern, and Le Figaro newspaper.

Women are often the focus of her work, though not exclusively so. Their story is, after all, partly her own.

She’s founded a collective, called Eve, of female photographers from countries including South Africa, Brazil and Spain, and says “women have lots of stories to tell”.

And it’s from the viewpoint of women that brings attention to “martyrs” of the eight-year war with Iraq.

She’s been to Iraq and explains: “I really wanted to go there. People were dying and I didn’t want to watch it on TV. I wanted to see things with my own eyes and take pictures.”

In the exhibition are three poignant photographs of mothers holding pictures of their now-dead sons.

Newsha first approached them at a cemetery where mothers would attend twice a week to pay their respects.

She says: “In the war with Iraq, we lost many soldiers. I always wanted to photograph the mother of martyrs. In the picture, the mother is like the son but the face of the mother grows older and the son is dead and will stay young.”

She’s just returned from Saudi Arabia, and while many there were reluctant to face her camera it was easier than in her previous visit.

Things, she says, are changing everywhere.

Of her homeland, she adds: “It’s changing; every year we see the change – it’s much more open than it was when I was 16.” She hopes her Newcastle exhibition will simply open people’s eyes.

“People don’t know about Iran so I’ve put together a general picture of Iranian women.”

In talking about the differences between exterior and interior lives, and referring to the title of the exhibition, she tells of sisters she met – one of whom wears traditional clothes; the other, western. It wasn’t even an issue between them.

“It’s the same thing in my family: my father’s family is very conservative; my mother’s isn’t – but they still always see each other; they always love each other.”

She adds: “My goal is, with a good picture, to turn a small story into a big story. People often want to sit on a coach and see happy things on TV. If, for one second, I can bring attention to someone’s problems in one good picture, that’s my goal.”

For information on Newsha, visit www.newshatavakolian.com Sisters in Chanel & Chador by Newsha Tavakolian i at Side Photographic Gallery in Side, Newcastle, until March 7. Closed on Mondays.

The exhibition runs alongside Telex Iran by photojournalist Gilles Peress. And a related season of Iranian films is also running at the adjacent Side Cinema. Visit www.amber-online.com  for details.