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Eng Yommanak 

Week Three activity Shirin Neshat 

Shirin Neshat is an internaitonal acclaimed artists who uses her phtotgraphs to influence other Iranian people to fight against the politics and the government. Her photographs works in to issues of gender, identity and politics in Muslim countires. Neshat’s earliest works were photographs, such as the Unveiling (1993) and Women of Allah (1993–97) series, which explore notions of femininity in relation to Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in her home country. As a way of coping with the discrepancy between the culture that she was experiencing and that of the pre-revolution Iran in which she was raised, she began her first mature body of work, the Women of Allah series, portraits of women entirely overlaid by Persian calligraphy. Her work refers to the social, cultural and religious codes of Muslim societies and the complexity of certain oppositions, such as man and woman. Neshat often emphasizes this theme showing two or more coordinated films concurrently, creating stark visual contrasts through motifs such as light and dark, black and white, male and female. Neshat has also made more traditional narrative short films, such as Zarin. Her photographs like the ones shown here is juxtaposing feminisim with Violence and masculinty. 

An example of her work are the pictures on this page. They both consists of guns a symbolism of violence and masculinty but in one of the photographs it is potrayed by juxtaposing an earing with a gun. This juxtaposition of the earing and the gun is representing both feminism and violence. The Iranian letters written on her face is representing her identity as an Iranian woman. Shirin Neshat has successfully influenced Iranian people to fight back against their politics due to her photographs. 

Shrin Neshat Photography 

This is my Shirin Neshat Photograph I used eyesadow to create a symbol on my hand to reprsent my identity. Identity can mean many things where you came from, your likes and dislikes, your personality, your family and friends and your belongings. I wanted my identity to be broad with many things so I decided to a "Ying Yang" symbol. Firstly it is a Chinese symbolism of balance and peace I am part Chinese so it is represeting my beliefs and culture. Finally, I love how it looks and what it means.  

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