Connecting people through art 

Shirin Neshat

The last word

Born in Iran and a resident of the United States since before the Islamic revolution and before Khomeini came to power, Shirin Neshat uses her photo and video work to elaborate a poetic vision, direct and non-judgmental, of the condition of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies. The artist penetrates the intimate and emotional space of these women who are the first to suffer ideological pressures, torn between a need for social cohesion and the desire for personal freedom. In The Last Word (2003), the artist reveals the power of coercion exercised by government authorities on authors and intellectuals declared to be dangerous for social order. The harshness of interrogation and the intimidation of bureaucrats is not, however, successful in defeating the dreams, innocence and hopes of the writer. A victory of the imagination, but also of speech, of words (those of the poet Forough Farokhzad) and the voice which becomes a symbol of liberty and re-actualises the myth of a new Scheherazade — far from western orientalist perceptions — in which intelligence, resistance and courage overcome the oppressor.