At first glance, the women you’ll see in Shadi Ghadirian’s online photo essay look like traditional Iranians. But look more closely, and you’ll see that the images are as off-kilter as the country itself.
Ghadirian took the photographs in Tehran, in settings inspired by the portrait studios of the late 19th century. But first, she equipped her subjects with decidedly modern props: a boom box, a mountain bike, a Pepsi can, a pair of shades, a vacuum cleaner. Ghadirian’s theme — the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity as it’s playing out in 21st-century Iran — is site-specific. “The only mentality of an outsider about the Iranian woman is a black chador,” she says. Her excellent photos look beyond the veil and, we hope, toward a freer future.
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