How female photographers are making their voices heard in Iran
On September 19, 2022, three days after Mahsa Amini died after being sent to a “re-education center” by Iran’s morality police for allegedly infringing the country’s strict dress code, photographer Yalda Moaiery was arrested, beaten and jailed.
She had been taking pictures of the resulting protests in the capital Tehran, part of a wider, women-led movement that erupted across the country following 22-year-old Amini’s death.
Moaiery was released on bail in December, reportedly pending a summons to begin a six-year prison sentence on anti-state charges. In January, a video of Moaiery was posted to her social media: dressed in an orange uniform, she sweeps the street and announces her sentence.
Sixteen years earlier, Moaiery had been granted permission to shadow Iranian police operations targeting women who weren’t observing the country’s compulsory hijab laws. Some of those images — of women looking fearful and angry, or shielding their faces with their hands as they’re put into police vans — appear in the timely new photography book “Breathing Space,” edited by Iranian art director and gallerist Anahita Ghabaian Etehadieh.
“The women were arrested for different reasons: a veil considered to be badly placed, make-up considered too conspicuous, or clothes deemed to be too tightly fitting,” explained Ghabaian Etehadieh of Moaiery’s photographs, which were taken in 2006 and 2007.
“Breathing Space,” published by Thames & Hudson, brings together the work of 23 Iranian female photographers whose work spans three decades. Exploring a range of photographic styles and genres, the book arrives at a pivotal moment in the trajectory of contemporary Iran. It has been released within weeks of the “official” redeployment of Iran’s morality police following the widespread protests spurred by Amini’s death and the subsequent arrests and executions of many young people across the country.
On September 19, 2022, three days after Mahsa Amini died after being sent to a “re-education center” by Iran’s morality police for allegedly infringing the country’s strict dress code, photographer Yalda Moaiery was arrested, beaten and jailed. She had been taking pictures of the resulting protests in the capital Tehran, part of a wider, women-led movement that…