It is my agenda in this article to coin a new term, to create and define a protologism.  If you were to google “Class Dysphoria” (at the point that this article was written) you would not find any exact matches to this term.  What your search would yield, however, are definitions on “dysphoria” and particularly “gender dysphoria”.  So, let us begin there.  Dysphoria is the opposite sensation of euphoria.  Wikipedia defines dysphoria as: “(from Greek: dysphoros - difficult to bear) a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction.  In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation… Common reactions to dysphoria include emotional distress; in some cases, even physical distress.”[1]  

A Google search also produces several results related to gender dysphoria.  Wikipedia defines Gender Dysphoria (GD) as “the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth”.[2].  Transracialism may evoke a similarly strong  state of distress.  However, it is not my contention to go into detail on either the topic of gender dysphoria or racial dysphoria, but rather to allude to them in order to draw parallels that aid in defining class dysphoria, since gender, race and class generally constitute the three main pillars of identity.  

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphoria
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria

In a world that recognizes that gender and sexuality are fluid, and that race and ethnicity can be any number of combinations, it should also be clearly understood that class identity does not fall into neat and tidy packages either.  Class, or to be clearer, socioeconomic class, is fluid.  A trinary system of categorization - lower, middle and upper classes - are not always viable parameters for many people. 

There is a famous statement quite frequently misattributed to Queen Victoria: “Beware of artists.  They mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous."  In fact, it was in a garbled letter from her Uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, who in 1845 wrote to his dear niece "To hope to escape censure and calamity is next to impossible, but whatever is considered by the enemy as a fit subject for attack is better modified or avoided.  The dealings with artists, for instance, require great prudence; they are acquainted with all classes of society, and for that very reason dangerous; they are hardly ever satisfied, and when you have too much to do with them, you are sure to have ​des ennuis."

Amidst this epic age of culture clash rigid categorizations of identity, including class, are insufficient and distressing to say the least.  We have not had the right combination of words to express this feeling of unease regarding class definitions, until now.  

- Holly Marie Armishaw  (February 2019)

The year 2018 had been a decent one for my art career.  I had rekindled my business relationship my on again-off again Vancouver-based gallery who hosted my solo show “A Feminist and a Francophile” this past November.  My work had been in four contemporary art fairs in the United States throughout the year:  Art on Paper - NYC, Art Market San Francisco, Seattle Art Fair, and Texas Contemporary Art Fair.  I was also working with private art consultants in San Francisco and in Sacramento where my work was sold at the Crocker Museum’s art auction that summer.  I had a riveting studio visit from a member of the Acquisitions Committee for the San Jose Museum of Art and the main art consultant for the offices of Google, Facebook and other noted corporations.  I was shortlisted for the second year in a row for an artist’s residency in Paris.  My work had finally been received into Vancouver’s prestigious Contemporary Art Gallery’s Annual Gala and Art Auction.  I was invited to be in a group show in New York City at Krause Gallery early in 2019.  And, my work was selling to noted collectors, including an acquisition to a prominent San Francisco based collector who had recently opened his own art foundation following on the footsteps of his maternal family, who founded the distinguished de Young Museum.  All my years of hard work were finally beginning to have some momentum. ​

 
On October 6 of 2018, however, it was brought to my attention via an old friend that a mutual Facebook acquaintance of ours had produced a piece of text-based art that exactly echoed the slogan of my most iconic text-based art.  I have been producing several variations of my Liberté Égalité Sororité © works since early 2017, which have since become an iconic part of my practice.  The artist I refer to is a popular (I am told) New York based artist. We have only met via Facebook, where we became friends in 2009 and have a fluid 60 mutual friends.  Having completed thirteen different variations on my Liberté Egalité Sororité © texts over the past two years, their various renditions have made public appearances twelve times included in exhibitions, art fairs, art auctions, public installations and Women’s Marches.  Two of those public appearances were in NYC.   There have also been at least 35 postings of this work of mine on social media, by myself, the galleries I’ve worked with, friends, colleagues, and even Canada’s preeminent newspaper, The Globe and Mail.  [Image Link 1]

The previous year I had first used the phrase "Liberté Égalité Sororité" as the title of my project proposal for the Summer 2017 Georgia Fee Artist/Writer’s Paris Artist Residency.  In it, I proposed the creation of a series of visual and written works on the virtually unknown women of the French Revolution.  While doing research one woman in particular stood out to me; Marie Olympe de Gouges.  She was an 18th century writer, activist, humanist, abolitionist and feminist.  (My essay on her can be read here.)  The piece of writing that she is most noted for is a feminist revision of France’s Declaration des Droits de l’Homme et le Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the {Male} Citizen).  The rights set out in the original declaration applied to only about 4.3 million French, known as “active citizens” out of a population of around 29 million.  Women were deemed as “passive citizens” along with non-land-owning men, immigrants and servants.  Intersectionality was not a consideration back then; those who needed equality and a voice the most, were callously swept aside.  De Gouges responded with her Declaration des Droites de la Femme et la Citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen). To quote Olympe de Gouges “Homme, es-tu capable d’être juste?!”; translation: 
​“Man, are you not capable of being just?!?
​

​I was absolutely thrilled when I first learned of the witty critique that de Gouges had written an astonishing two centuries before the term “feminist revisionism” had even become a part of our vernacular!  I had found an ally in de Gouges nearly 250 years later.  I had just completed a series of feminist revisionism text-based artworks entitled “How I Became a Feminist by Reading Nietzsche” based on my favorite quotes by Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Freud, that had made such a deep impression on me in my formative late teenage years.  Like de Gouges with the Declaration of Rights, I was mostly in agreement with the content of these philosophers.  Their misogynistic writings, however, had made me feel excluded as though their wisdom and inspiration were never intended to apply to me, a young woman, just as the rights of the Déclaration were intended only for men.  And so, by inverting the gendered pronouns of their prose, I had made their most influential quotes my own.  Using the same modus operadi that I had used in my series “How I Became a Feminist by Reading Nietzsche” I similarly executed the "Liberté Égalité Sororité" by replacing the masculine signifiers with their feminine counterparts.  I also rendered them both in gold leaf and in nail polish, my signature feminine medium, painting them in various shades of mauve, eggplant and fuchsia.  

​
The work in question is a critique of France’s national motto, Liberté Égalité Fraternité, which translates into English as “Liberty Equality Fraternity/Brotherhood”.  The motto is proudly displayed on French currency and every federal and municipal building across France.  This protocol began in 1838, though its origins are rooted in the French Revolution of 1789.  I noticed the inherent contradiction in a national motto, essentially the formula for a democratic nation, that proclaims equality yet fails to recognize over half the population.  To point out this inherent hypocrisy and audacity, the idea of replacing the word “Fraternité” with its feminine counterpart “Sororité (Sisterhood)” came freely and naturally to me at this point in early 2017.  It was simply a matter of combining my passions for French history and culture with feminism thus continuing the pattern of feminist revisionism in my art practice.  Hence Liberté Égalité Sororité soon became a signature work and concept in my art practice - my rallying cry.  
​ 

 
The inspiration for the original choice of the word “fraternité” did not escape my notice.  Having grown up in a family of Freemasons, men and women alike, on both maternal and paternal sides of the family, I understand the concept of fraternity or “brotherhood”, perhaps clearer than most.  Researching and visiting important sites of Freemasons and their predecessors, the Knights Templar, has been a minor obsession of mine for over 20 years. “By the time of the French Revolution, there were some 1250 Masonic Lodges in the country (France).”[1]  Freemasonry had been a prominent means by which the ideas of the Enlightenment had spread across Western Europe.  The Revolution had been an effect from which the Enlightenment had been the cause.  There is no wondering why the French King tried to suppress the publication and dissemination of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia, which was the equivalent of today’s Wikipedia.  The Encyclopaedia empowered the middle class through the spread of knowledge acquired through the scientific revolution and the Age of Reason.  If science and destroyed the authority of the church then the king could not claim to be a “divine ruler appointed by God”. The New World Order, which is demonized by conspiracy theorists, is simply the throwing off of the Ancien Régime (Ancient Regime) that was built on tyranny and autocracy.  
 
Freemasonry is often associated with a nefarious tone, which may be ill-deserved.  Nefarious to whom, I ask?  Secret societies were formed because of the powerful hold that the church and the monarchy held over entire nations of people.  Of course people had to meet in secrecy to discuss ideals of the Enlightenment in the face of censorship and imprisonment.  And, accusing them of heresy or evil was a necessary attempt to quell their power.  Speaking against the church, even when using scientific logic, was speaking against the King whose position depended upon the church, which was therefore treason.  Knowledge was, and still is, a dangerous threat to the balance of power.  We can witness its present perceived threat in extremist communities that deny girls equal access to education even still in the 21st century.  Ignorance is a weapon against the masses, which the brotherhood sought to cast off.  This plight against ignorance continues today still in various forms including politics, the sciences, art and literature.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Orient_de_France

Witnessing the present increasing hatred and discrimination that continues to proliferate and the depreciation for democratic ideals such as liberty and equality (through the increase in both domestic and foreign terrorism that threaten the pursuit of liberty), I turned my attention to the those who fought to develop a society built upon those core democratic principles.  I began to create artwork that was not just about the roots of democracy, but about the French influence that propagated them and the women who have been largely left out of the historical picture.  And so, in early 2017 I applied for the aforementioned Georgia Fee Paris Residency and was shortlisted for their international competition.  Though I ended up as a runner-up, by that point I had become so passionately invested in the idea of my project that I worked out a way to make it happen nonetheless.
​
During that summer I rented an apartment in Paris and spent June and July diligently pursuing traces of the heroines of the French Revolution who had fought so hard to support the revolutionary cause there.  ​Not only were these women left out of the majority of history books and their artifacts lost to time, but most of them had perished in a most tragic way.  While the men who supported the Revolution were honoured and glorified, the women who shared the same commitment of dedicating their lives to the revolutionary cause were restricted from public speech and office, became the source of ridicule and threats, were subjected to public beatings, rape, imprisonment, interrogation, exile, slander and worse.  These women include: Olympe de Gouges, Charlotte Corday, Théroigne de Méricourt, Manon Roland, Germaine de Stæl, Clarie Lacombe and Pauline Leon, none of whose efforts to advocate for the pillars of democracy were welcomed by their “brothers”.  Most of them had ended up guillotined, ironically charged as “enemies of the Revolution”.  Others fled persecution to neighbouring countries or ended up in mental asylums. The majority of the men in power at the Assemblée Nationale shared something in common with the Freemasons (albeit they were 24% one and the same [2]) who both believed that women had much too delicate of a countenance to be involved in such nasty matters as politics.  Their place, the Jacobins said, was to be at home caring for the raising of a young generation of Republicans.  "Women were taught to be committed to their husbands and 'all his interests... [to show] attention and care... [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation.'  A woman's education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result, women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens."[3]
​
[2] https://www.kamloopsfreemasons.com/wp-content/uploads/Freemasonry-And-The-French-Revolution-1.pdf
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_French_Revolution

​During that time I put a tremendous amount of effort into searching Paris for evidence of the women who had fought so hard to support the revolutionary cause there.  ​Not only were these women left out of the majority of history books and their artifacts lost to time, but most of them had perished in a most tragic way.  While the men who supported the Revolution were honoured and glorified, the women who shared the same commitment of dedicating their lives to the cause were restricted from public speech and office, became the source of ridicule and threats, were subjected to public beatings, rape, imprisonment, interrogation, exile, slander and worse.  These women include: Olympe de Gouges, Charlotte Corday, Théroigne de Méricourt, Manon Roland, Germaine de Stæl, Clarie Lacombe and Pauline Leon, none of whose efforts to advocate for the pillars of democracy were welcomed by their “brothers”.  Most of these women that I tracked had ended up guillotined, ironically charged as “enemies of the Revolution”.  Others fled persecution to  neighbouring countries or ended up in mental asylums.  Apparently the majority of the men in power at the Assemblée Nationale shared something in common with the Freemasons (albeit they were often one and the same) who both believed that women had much too delicate of a countenance to be involved in such nasty matters as politics.  Their place, the Jacobins said, was to be at home caring for the raising of a young generation of Republicans.  "Women were taught to be committed to their husbands and 'all his interests... [to show] attention and care... [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation.'  A woman's education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens." [4]
​
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_French_Revolution

My commitment to the cause of Liberté Égalité Sororité and the heroines of the French Revolution involved several photographic excursions to search for and to photograph their presence in history.  My quest took me to ancient prisons, a mental asylum, the site where the guillotine was invented, the place where thousands of executions occurred,  the street where an assassination by a young woman on one of the blood-thirsty radical revolutionaries happened, the former site of the Templar fortress, a national Masonic lodge, clandestine rooms atop restaurants where covert operations were discussed, museums, official historic institutions, and even to a cobweb infested staircase beneath my apartment that led to the underground tunnels/catacombs.  These and other journeys, alongside research through countless documentaries, books and articles, all carried out en Français, reveal the legwork, passion and dedication behind my creation of the Liberté Egalité Sororité artworks. 

 

As the Women's Movement sweeps across the globe I regard it as unfinished business not just for ourselves, but for the rights of those whose lives were swept under the carpet in the past, and as a battleground for the women of generations to come.  The past, present and future are inextricably linked, hence, my interest and practicing feminist revisionism in my art since 2011. ​ 

​A friend and colleague of mine declared "He’s capitalized on the #MeToo movement by stealing from someone whom the movement is meant to protect!", upon hearing about the appropriation of my "Liberté Égalité Sororité" work regarding the aforementioned NYC artist.   Maynard Monroe has appropriated my artwork, a rallying cry for female equality, for his own personal gain and twisted the context to cover his tracks.  This artist’s portfolio suggests that this isn't the first time he's "borrowed" phrases from other artists for his text-based work.  That, and his social media also suggests that he doesn't have any interest in France or French culture, nor speaks French.  But the most telling fact is that what an artist’s work will always betray - patterns.  Feminist revisionism and the inverting of gendered pronouns are devices that this artist has never used in his work before this piece; it simply doesn't fit his pattern.  ​​Despite the hypocrisy of claiming to be a feminist, please, tell me again how this is "an original M.M. work" and not simply a nonchalant appropriation of a Facebook friends’ work because she has less visibility and is therefore fodder for someone of higher repute and lesser integrity.  

The art world asks why there aren’t more successful women artists.  Perhaps more women, of the past, present and future, would achieve their lofty ambitions if men weren't perpetually taking from us and thwarting our career attempts.  Whether it be stealing our sense of autonomy, crippling us with trauma, or appropriation of intellectual property, enough is enough!  Perhaps my sentiment is best expressed by the Notorious RGB (Ruth Bader Ginsberg):

​“All we ask of our breathren is that they take their feet off our necks.”

​- Holly Marie Armishaw (2019)

Timeline of Liberté Égalité Sororité public appearances. 

​Suggested Readings:
​
Moore, Lucy. Liberty – The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France. Harper Collins Publishers, 2006.

Birch, Una.  Secret Societies - Illuminati, Freemasons and the French Revolution.  Ibis Press, 2007.

Poirson, Martial.  Amazones de la Revolution (Des Femmes dans la tourmente de 1789).  Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2016.
 
Blanc, Olivier.  Olympe de Gouges – Des Droits de la Femme à la Guillotine.  Éditions Tallandier, 2014.

https://www.kamloopsfreemasons.com/wp-content/uploads/Freemasonry-And-The-French-Revolution-1.pdf

On a typical dark, rainy Vancouver Sunday afternoon in 2011 I had the pleasure of my first genuine encounter with the work of Andrew Dadson.  As I gathered with other members of the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver for a studio visit in Dadson’s garage, which doubled as his studio at the time, I listened carefully as he shared the process and meaning behind his art practice.  As he spoke of the representation of the void in his work, I experienced that moment of exhilaration when I am able to make an intellectual connection with someone else’s work.  My mind immediately conjured images from Stephen Hawking’s writings on dark matter and wormholes.  I have been quietly following Dadson’s work ever since that day as it has made its way to various international exhibitions and art fairs.  Six years later, upon viewing his solo exhibition, I am as impressed with Dadson’s practice today as I was in 2011.

As you enter the Contemporary Art Gallery during Andrew Dadson’s solo show “Site For Still Life”, curated by Director Nigel Prince, the first thing that you’ll notice is the soft, violet aura which emanates from the B.C. Binning wing.  One is drawn like a moth to a flame towards a series of eight potted houseplants, dispersed atop a low platform at the far end of the gallery.  Though varying in type and size, each plant and its pot are painted uniformly in white, biodegradable paint.  The plants are properly potted in moist, fertilized soil and are illuminated by LED grow lights placed at either side of the platform.  This is a living sculpture – a growing trend among 20th century contemporary art, which uses plants and animals as its unwitting subjects.  As these plants grow, their artificial shells crack from the internal pressure leaving parts of the leaves exposed and paint debris scattered below.  “Houseplants” (2017) is an extension of Dadson’s practice, which traverses the delineation between painting and sculpture. 

Dadson is perhaps best known for his thick, sculptural paintings created by an additive process of multiple layers of various colours of paint.  A process-based artist, his technique is revealed in the application and careful placement of the paint itself.  After the paint is applied most of it is then scraped away from the surface of the canvas and onto the edges, thus extending the painting beyond the canvas itself, creating a thick, multi-colored crust.  Once the layering is complete, in an act of negation, Dadson applies the thick painting into a second raw canvas before removing the original one.  What was once the bottom layer of the painting then becomes the top.  An indentation is left where the thick primary canvas once was, creating a concave low-relief sculpture.  The result is one of his signature “Restretch” paintings.  The final, top layer of paint showing is always either white or black, bringing the viewer back into the void of abstraction recalling Malevich’s seminal work “The Black Square” (1915).

The four small “Restretch” paintings in “Site For A Still Life” were created using Dadson’s signature process, except that he replaced multi-colored paint layers with raw materials such as locally sourced mulch, gravel and soil in an homage to Arte Povera.  Dadson’s use of paint and soils can easily be related to his landscape interventions, such as “Black Painted Lawn” (2006) and “Black Hill” (2014), in which he spray painted sections of outdoor private and public property with non-toxic acrylic paint, then photo-documented the work for posterity.  The visual essence of these installations parallels his monochromatic works on canvas.  While this act of obliteration of still recalls Malevich’s “Black Square”, Dadson almost intuitively realizes in his work that the void, or nothingness, can only be defined in comparison to something, hence leaving the rough edges to define or frame the negative.

In the Alvin Balkind wing at the CAG, Dadson has darkened the gallery and painted the walls black.  In the centre, two projectors face opposite walls running the same reel of film.  While one projects a sunrise the other, a sunset; at times it is difficult to tell which is which.  Both time-lapsed films contain a partly cloudy sky, and a large glowing orb, all rendered in monochromatic tinted orange. “Sunrise/Sunset” (2015/17) is a simple, but powerful metaphor for the cyclical opposing forces of nature and the temporality of existence.

Returning to the B.C. Binning wing, two large monochromatic paintings suddenly come into focus.  “Silver Mass” (2017) and “Double Half (2017) seem almost representational, as far as abstract paintings go.  On the thick silver coated mass of paint a circular form appears in diminished view above a partial view of a much larger, assumingly closer, circular form.  One can easily imagine that this is a view of one planet or moon, as seen from another.  This premise is reinforced by marks that could easily be seen as moon craters.  “Double Half”, whose final layer is rendered in white, seems again to represent celestial bodies, this time as seen from outer space.  In a subtractive method, Dadson has gouged away small areas of the top paint layer to reveal a deep blue beneath, suggesting far away galaxies and stars.  The end result is as if the artist has rendered a view from space, in a reversal of dark and light.

Noting how the artist focused this exhibit on atmosphere, (sun) light, earth (soil) and plants, all basic elements of survival – a clearer and profounder sense of Dadson’s work is revealed. Upon carefully viewing each work in the exhibit, the “Houseplants” installation takes on new meaning.  The scene of quiet, motionless life forms bathed in an otherworldly light have a sublime effect.  My thoughts return to Stephen Hawking and his proclamation in the spring of 2017 that humans must look to inhabit other planets within the next 100 years in order to survive before life on earth as we know it is decimated.  Dadson seems more optimistic in his outlook for the humankind future than Malevich did.  Where it is possible to sustain plant life, there is hope.  Until that time, earth is still a site for life.

- Holly Marie Armishaw (October 2017)

Post-Parisian Depression is, as described by its name, a period of notable depression that one experiences after leaving Paris and returning home.  It is a neologism that I created to describe the frequent aching pain that I experience upon separation from Parisian life.  Symptoms are similar to those of other forms of depression and are marked by a sense of grief and loss.  Caused by a return to reality, Post-Parisian Depression is the reconciling of what “is” with what “could be”.  One might imagine how wonderful their life could be if situated permanently in a vibrant major (art) world capital.  The heightened stimulation of the brain that one enjoyed while in Paris, now deactivated, still clings desperately to the memories, the moments, and the feelings of rapture that one felt while in the midst of their Parisian experience. 
 
The effect of leaving Paris is similar to the low experienced after a drug high; as the dopamine levels in the brain return to their normal state, they no longer feel sufficient.  Symptoms often include lethargy or malaise and may be further exacerbated by simultaneously occurring symptoms of jet lag.  Post-Parisian Depression exists primarily as a tongue-in-cheek condition not yet recognized by the medical community, or as one might call it "a first world problem".  Its recurrences and longevity  can be exacerbated by triggering memories of Paris simply through browsing photos. 

​​To love Paris is to love history.  Secondary nostalgia, to coin another neologism, is brought on by a sense of proximity with great figures of the past, whether they be artists, poets, writers, philosophers, revolutionaries, designers, fashionable aristocrats, emperors, kings or medieval knights.  To walk in the footsteps of history, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Belle Époque, the Avant-Garde, and Post-War Paris, is one of the most powerful features of this magnificent city.  The idea of being part of something much grander than oneself is captivating to say the least.  This concept of secondary nostalgia was so whimsically depicted in Woody Allen’s 2011 film “Midnight in Paris”.  With its world-class museums containing collections from Ancient Egypt to the present, the ability to transport oneself to their preference of time and place in history is a privilege unknown to the majority of North Americans, who otherwise may become immersed in other cultures of the past only through books, films and the web.

One of Paris’s greatest strengths is that its attention is not lost on narcissism.  La Grande Dame holds up a mirror to rest of the world to contemplate.  Its many restaurants, museums, and contemporary art galleries, are a critical reflection of the diversity of its homeland, its colonies, and the world beyond.  Each arrondisement bears a signature flavor of ethnicities and religions that can vary vastly from one neighborhood to the next.  You may see stylish business men and women, Orthodox Jews, men and women dressed in traditional colorful African garb, Muslim women wearing hijabs while sporting the latest Chanel handbags, Asians of every persuasion, and young hipsters, all of whom call Paris home.  Our senses run on overdrive as we process the thrill of experiencing cultures and multiple languages that may be somewhat foreign to us, when in fact, it is we who are the foreigners.

France is similar enough to North America to be comfortable, but different enough to be exciting.  By contrast it is that sameness that for some, makes our North American home cities so dull.  Canada, for example, celebrated its 150th anniversary just this summer.  (That is not to say that Canada was not inhabited by its First Nations People long before it was officially declared a country.)  By comparison, Paris has maintained itself as a city for approximately 3000 years!  We are, no matter how many generations old, all visitors here if not of First Nations ancestry.  And so there is a sense that, even for a fourth or fifth generation Canadian like myself, that can only be known through spending time in Europe; that sense of discovering your ancestral roots and taking one step closer to knowing your true self.  If you don’t know where you come from then how can you know who you are?  This sense of proximity with our ancestry divulges some of the power that Paris holds over us. 
 
We tend to feel much more alive when we travel.  Outside of our comfort zones our brains are much more engaged.  The smallest tasks become challenges: digging through a pile of change in our pockets and studying each coin carefully to determine it’s value as we attempt to pay for our morning coffee, successfully navigating the Paris metro, ordering dinner without resorting to speaking English, and a multitude of other common daily activities are all small victories.  In our home cities our brains become lazy.  We can complete these everyday tasks on autopilot without the slightest concern.  It is those small mental stimulations, like hearing new languages and accents, navigating new city roads or metro systems, and learning a new set of cultural norms, that may challenge us now and keep us from developing Alzheimer’s or dementia as we grow older.
 
And so as we return the comfort of our homes, bathed in familiarity as our brains return to their normal autonomic states, it is not surprising to feel a sense of loss as a part of us that was once fully engaged returns to it’s slumber until the next trip to Paris.    

- Holly Marie Armishaw, 2017

Tracey Emin is one of the most famous and controversial artists to come out of the United Kingdom in decades.  She was born in Croydon, a suburb of South London, on July 3 of 1963 to unwed parents, her mother of English origin and her father of Turkish Cypriot descent.  They raised her in the seaside city of Margate, where she had a difficult time during her teenage years, later expressed in vivid detail through her artwork.  By the 1990’s Emin had made it onto the world stage of contemporary art as one of the most celebrated YBA’s (Young British Artists).  Although she has turned her personal tragedies into a form of cultural currency, her success has not come without sacrifice.

Lauded as a significant figure in contemporary feminist art for her confessional tone, Emin wholeheartedly embraces the feminist adage “the personal is political”.  In interviews she speaks candidly about being raped at age thirteen, getting pregnant at age eighteen, having two abortions and three miscarriages.  By exposing the intimate details of her own life and the emotional scars of abuse and trauma that women are frequently conditioned to conceal, Emin creates an empowering dialogue about feminine existence.

I’ve Got It All (2000) is an enlarged Polaroid snapshot of Emin that contains many significant themes that run throughout her art practice – sexuality, intimacy, honesty, exposure, rawness, and the repressed anger that typically accompanies emotional pain.  Sitting on a rust red floor in a low-cut Vivienne Westwood dress, legs splayed, Emin attempts to gather a pile of British currency that seems to spew uncontrollably from her loins.  The context of when this image was created is essential to its central interpretation.  In 1999 Emin was selected as a nominee for the Turner Prize.  Although she didn’t win, her controversial piece My Bed (1998) inspired such a media frenzy that she overshadowed the actual winner. I’ve Got It All is clearly a celebration of triumph in the face of challenging odds.

An alternative interpretation to the celebrative tone of I’ve Got It All (2000) considers the title as sarcastic.  Emin has been open about discussing the fact that she never had children.  “I would have been so much happier had I not had the abortions, but I truly believe that I would have been so much unhappier if I had had the children."[1]  She has been heavily criticized for suggesting that motherhood and successful careers cannot exist simultaneously.  However, she has opened up a very relevant discourse on an issue on the choice of childbirth that most serious career woman, and certainly every female artist, has contemplated by the time they have reached age 40.  Emin was 37 when this photo was taken.  The wealth portrayed in I’ve Got It All is a lifeless substitute for the children that she never had.  But, while Emin has never carried any of her pregnancies to full term, she has given birth to art works and ideas that will far outlive her self; they are her carefully chosen legacy. 

[1]www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/tracey-emin/tracey-emin-i-felt-that-in-return-for-my-childrens-souls-i-had-been-given-my-success-1518934.html

Bibliography:

“Tracey Emin: I’ve Got It All.  Saatchi Gallery. www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_i_got_all.htm.  Accessed Oct 25, 2016.
 
Digiulio, Lauren.  “How Tracey Emin Conquered the World.” Idiom, September 28th, 2011, idiommag.com/2011/09/how-tracey-emin-conquered-the-world.  Accessed Oct. 26, 2016.
 
Ward, Ossian.  “Tracey Emin: No Bedtime Story.” Art in America, June 2011 Issue, pages unknown, www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/tracey-emin.  Accessed Oct. 27, 2016.
 
“Biography.” Tracey Emin Studio, www.traceyeminstudio.com/biography.  Accessed on Oct. 26, 2016.
 
Biography.com Editors.  “Tracey Emin Biography.”  A&E Television Networks,  
www.biography.com/people/tracey-emin-20891535.  Accessed Oct 26, 2016.
 
“Tracey Emin in Confidence.”  YouTube, uploaded by braitnicho, Aug. 3, 2013,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSNXVjU_Tdo. 
 
“Tracey Emin - The South Bank Show.”  YouTube, uploaded by VHS Pile, Feb 21, 2013.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxaoAy9oNtY#t=262.466757.
 
“BBC HARDTalk with Tracey Emin” (Stephen Sackur Interviews Tracey Emin) YouTube, uploaded by BBC Hardtalk, Jun 12, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=og5FqDxPUKg
 
Clearwater, Bonnie.  “Roving Eye: A Happy Tracey Emin.”  Art in America, Dec 19, 2011.  www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/roving-eye-tracey-emin.  Accessed Oct. 27, 2016. 

Jones, Liz.  “A life more Eminent: Tracey Emin opens up her intimate photo memoir - and tells Liz Jones why her 'not always palatable' past has shaped her life's work.”  Daily Mail Online,  April 20, 2013. www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2311050/Tracey-Emin-opens-intimate-photo-memoir-tells-Liz-Jones-past-shaped-lifes-work.html, Accessed Oct. 26, 2016
 
Manchester, Elizabeth.  “Tracey Emin: Terribly Wrong.”  Tate, July 2000. www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-terribly-wrong-p11565/text-summary.  Accessed Oct. 26, 2016.
 
Tracey Emin: 'I felt that, in return for my children's souls, I had been given my success’.” Independent, Jan. 28, 2009, www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/tracey-emin/tracey-emin-i-felt-that-in-return-for-my-childrens-souls-i-had-been-given-my-success-1518934.html.  Accessed Oct. 27, 2016.
 
Urist, Jacoba.  “Why can’t great artists be mothers?”  NY Times, May 21, 2015. nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/05/21/why-cant-great-artists-be-mothers.  Accessed Oct 26, 2016.

As I entered the vast halls of booths at Art Basel 2016 I was searching for new and exciting developments in photography.  I found little to none.  What did cry out to me most from the walls though was that something much more exciting was happening in the world of painting.  One of the first works that really captured my attention was by Pamela Rosenkrantz - a fridge stocked with water bottles, each bottle filled with paint pigments.  "Now that's a painting!" I said to myself.  Here is my selection of works from Art Basel 2016 that challenge the notion of painting as we know it.

Traditionally speaking painting was simply: PAINT + CANVAS = PAINTING

Are both elements really required for a work to be considered a painting?  After all, Robert Raushenberg's first "combine painting" entitled "Bed" of 1955 used the artists own bedding materials instead of a canvas to paint on.  If it is agreed that we may eliminate the canvas and replace it with bedding, wood panel or acrylic sheeting, then it seems fair game to perhaps replace the paint with alternatives or even eliminate it altogether.   Such is the case in Tauba Auerbach's woven canvases or Nicholas Hlobo's canvases with ribbon.  In other works, the paint itself is kept, but deconstructed, omitting the oil that is traditionally mixed with pigment to produce paint.  A fantastic example of this is Thilo Heinzmann's delicate minimal canvas.  Anish Kapoor, the master of materiality and contemporary alchemist, presents "Dragon", which, while not on canvas, features monochromes of an intensely rich Prusssian blue pigment (reminiscent of Yves Kleins "YK Blue") applied to eight Japanese riverbed stones.  Painting is no longer about subject matter; rather, it is an exploration in formalist practices.  Materiality defines painting of this era. 

While you might not agree with me that all of these are paintings, perhaps neither will all of the artists I've featured.  But, in taking a cue from the title of Rosenkrantz's refrigerated pigments I urge you to "Look Deeper".

- Holly Marie Armishaw, July 2016

Bastille Day is a national holiday celebrated annually on July 14th by millions of French citizens.  It was on July 14th, 1789 that the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille, marking a key turning point of events in the spark of the French Revolution.  The Bastille was a notorious prison in Eastern Paris.  Though at the time, it housed only 7 inmates, it was known also to be the place where the French authorities housed their arsenal of gunpowder.  Brutally murdering the prison warden and several guards, they also destroyed the stone prison by hand, symbolically dismantling the state of oppression that they faced.  Accessing the gunpowder, they took up arms previously looted from Les Invalides, leveling the playing field between them and the Ancien Regime.  Today all that remains of the Bastille prison is a brick outline of one of the towers, which can be found laid into the sidewalk surrounding the Place de Bastille.   It is one of the most important non-existent monuments in the history of democratic civilizations.  The events that transpired on that day reverberated throughout France, Europe and the New World, leaving a lasting impression that is deeply woven into the fabric of Western culture.

The events that led up to the storming of the Bastille are far too numerous and complex to explain in full detail in the context of this article.  As many of us know, the French people had grown discontent over the handling of public funds, leaving them destitute as they bore the weight of heavy taxation, while the nobility and clergy, who paid no taxes themselves, lived in luxury off the backs of the people.  An important historical fact that has often escaped the attention of most North Americans is that the French had been funding the American Revolution of Independence against the British.  This support was facilitated by Benjamin Franklin - the first Ambassador between the United States and France.  Of course, the French had their own political motivations, as they did not want to see the British gain further territories, and provided financial support until their own coffers were bare.  Unfortunately, this major fact goes largely unacknowledged as the more popular story is that the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, and her love of fashion and luxury, drove the country to bankruptcy.  While it certainly didn't help matters, that would have to be one heck of a wardrobe!  The fact is that the state of financial distress had been handed down to Marie Antoinette and her husband, Louis XVI through the hands of his grandfather, Louis XIV.  Also known as the Sun King, it was Louis XIV, who built the fabulous Chateau Versailles, which is now a renowned symbol of the corrupt over-indulgence of those in power, and host to millions of tourists a year.  Consequently, his grandson, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed by guillotine in 1793 during what would become known as the French Revolution.

The storming of the Bastille afforded the French people the opportunity to take up arms thereby forever altering the balance of power.  As the people no longer respected the established authority, of the nobility and clergy, arming themselves enabled them the ability to revolt and to defy the King’s Guard, who were expected to maintain order in the French capital and to protect the royal family.  It was seen as a necessity in the face of oppression by the corrupt absolute monarchy.  It is this incident and ideology that eventually made it’s way into the second amendment of the American Constitution – The Right to Bear Arms.  Though nothing can console us over the tragic and far too numerous mass shootings that occur in the United States each year, at least understanding the context of the historical events of the storming of the Bastille provides some illumination on the original ideals of the American NRA.

Though the very phrase “New World Order” seems to conjure notions of conspiracy theories, one need not look far, as it hides in plain sight.  The proponents of the Revolution saw the Ancien Regime as needing to be replaced and the Americas, a popular place for new settlements, were then known as the New World.  “Ancien” being French for “ancient”, and Regime, meaning “order”, referred to the system of absolute monarcy that they sought to replace with their own elected officials.  These were instrumental ideals of the Revolution, which took root in the newer settled lands of the Americas, a land that was untainted by the rule of an absolute monarchy.  At first the the Third Estate in France, (the first being the nobility, the second being the clergy and the third being everyone else) proposed the idea of a constitutional monarchy, as the British had already established.  However, when it became clear that King Louis VXI had no intention of caving to these demands, he was executed for treason against France.  It was said that "The King must die so that the Revolution may live".  His wife, Marie Antoinette was also to face the same fate on the guillotine.  Thousands more died on this new killing machine that became known as the "National Razor" during the Reign of Terror.  Anyone that was suspected of sympathy to the monarchy, or as an enemy of the Revolution, was quickly tried and often sent to their death.  As news of the beheading of the monarchs spread throughout Europe and North America, other monarchs feared similar uprisings.  In Canada, the British suppressed this news from their citizens, in fear of a similar violent uprising. 

As the Revolution gained momentum in Paris, the people organized and adopted a symbol to identify their allegiance to the Revolution.  The color red was added to the previous colors of France, blue and white and became known as the “Tricoloure”.  Some historians contend that the white of the flag represented the color of the House of Bourbon, the French royal family, while blue represented the spiritual.  Though there is still much debate as to the meaning of those colors, one could speculate that the red of the tricolor symbolizes the blood that had to flow in order for the Revolution to live.  Today the tricoloure is seen not only on the French national flag, but also on the American flag.  Given that France was the first ally of the United States, it comes as no surprise that the U.S. flag bears the same colors as those of the French flag and the colors of the Revolution.

The French and the American Revolutions bear many striking similarities.  Both were strongly influenced by the ideals of the Enlightenment and both resulted in the establishment of a bill or charter of rights.  The French "Declaration of the Rights of Man" (and of the Citizen) was passed in August of 1789, shortly after the storming of the Bastille.  One of the most defining articles was the idea of liberty: "Article IV - Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law."  The similarity to the American Declaration of Independence of 1772 is obvious, which states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  How unfortunate that in the year 2016, we face so many challenges to these simple rights, under constant threats of police brutality, racial profiling, gun violence and acts of terrorism.

The single, most important aspect of the French Revolution was of course the outcome.  Following a long battle that cost many lives, France was transformed from being an Absolute Monarchy to becoming a Republic of the People, a Democracy.  The revolutionary action took power from the hands of the few and placed it into the hands of many.  The French Revolution has served for over 200 years as a reminder of the power of the “common” people to rise up against oppression and together accomplish “uncommon” feats through determination, collective organization.  It is that spirit, which is captured in the French motto “Liberté, égalité, fraternité “ (liberty, equality, fraternity), that daring achievement, that shaped much of the democratic ideals that Western civilization holds so dear to this day as a result of the fire that was sparked by the actions of Bastille Day, 1789.  However, the most important debate that they French Revolution has indelibly impressed upon the Western World is  with is the question of "at what cost of human life?" should we fight for what we believe.

Forget any misconceptions that you might have about Paris being a city filled with dusty old museums full of art created by long since deceased artists.  Paris has one of the most incredible international contemporary art scenes in the world!  With an impressive diversity of work to be found by renowned artists from across the globe, it is no surprise that major art dealers like Gagosian and Mary Goodman have locations here in Paris.  The smorgasbord of temporary exhibitions available here are enough to keep any art aficionado satiated for a prolonged length of time.  Here are 10 days of recommendations, which you will find spaced throughout this dynamic city.

Day 1:  Foundation Louis Vuitton
 
The Foundation Louis Vuitton, owned by LVMH, is a great example of one the major corporate sponsorships of the arts, as is so often seen in Europe.  The highly anticipated spectacular building, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, opened in the fall of 2014.  It is located at the far West side of Paris near the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.  The exterior of the Foundation Louis Vuitton has recently been transformed by French artist Daniel Buren through a site-specific installation of grand proportions, patterning the glass façade with colored films in his signature modernist repetitive aesthetic.  However the best feature of FLV, of course, lies within the glass walls.  The current exhibition features contemporary Chinese artists including Yang Fudong, Ai Wei and many others.  The most impressive feature may be two large works by artist Zhang Huan who uses incense ash gathered from Buddhist temples from his home city in his work.  Using the ashes on linen, the artist has created what at close scale looks like a scattering of debris, but at far range comes into focus as historical scenes of Tiananmen Square and another of the Chinese people digging a massive canal.  Painting, sculpture, video and animation run throughout the exhibit.

Day 2 and 3: The Marais
 
The Marais, also known as the 3rd and 4th arrondisments of Paris, has the highest concentration of contemporary art galleries in the city.  Renowned international dealers like Emmanuel Perrotin, Thaddeus Ropac, Marion Goodman, and many, many others have spaces here.  Some of them, limited by the scale of the historical architecture, have two spaces in close proximity to one another.  Many of the world’s most prestigious artists are shown in these galleries as well as young talents.  Pick up a gallery guide at your first stop for a detailed list of all the current contemporary art exhibitions in the city.  To see them all in detail will likely take two full days.  The galleries themselves are often very discreet from the street and difficult to locate unless you know what you are looking for.  Watch for small bronze plaques bearing the gallery names on the walls outside courtyard gates.  It is in these discreet spaces that you will experience the height of the Parisan contemporary art scene.

Day 4: Palais de Tokyo
 
The Palais de Tokyo, named after the now non-existent avenue it was built upon, features temporary exhibitions of French and international contemporary art.  The Palais de Tokyo has become the most dynamic hub in the city featuring a broad program of that includes exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances, collaborative projects, film screenings and lectures.  Memorable exhibitions here include those by Ryan Gander, Thomas Hirschorn, Hiroshi Sugimoto and others.  A suite of new exhibitions has just opened, filling the altered basement with works by David Ryan & Jérôme Joy, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Marguerite Humeau, Ayoung Kim, Mika Rottenberg, and Michel Houellebecq.  The Palais de Tokyo is open late, which is perfect also because they have a fantastic restaurant, Monsier Blue.  If you make reservations and the weather is pleasant, you may be able to sit on the terrace, which provides a spectacular view capping off a perfect evening at the Palais.

Day 5: The First Quarter
 
One of the greatest joys of Paris is that the arts of all types are made readily accessible to the public, if you know where to look.  Though the first arrondisment is most noted for the world-famous Louvre, it is not without it’s contemporary art treasures scattered about.  In fact, the Lourve often collaborates with notable local galleries and has featured some phenomenal projects.  This summer one can view a site-specific installation by artist JR at the Lourve Pyramid that has made European art news headlines.  A detailed stroll through the adjacent Tuileries gardens often holds a few surprises.  Among them, a Lawrence Weiner permanent installation along the North wall, adjacent to the Rue de Rivoli.  At the end of the Tuileries lies the Jeu de Paume, a historical building known as the place where the Tennis Court Oath was signed, it is now a dedication photography gallery featuring temporary exhibitions of notable international photographers.  Nearby in the courtyard of the Palais Royale one can view a permanent installation by French artist Chris Burden while sipping rosé in the afternoon sun at one of the café terraces.

Day 6: Chateau Versailles
 
The French are a world leader in cultural fusions, creating hybrid collaborations that marry contemporary art with music, fashion, design, architecture, and history.  Summer is the best time to visit Chateau Versailles, which is a mere half hour train ride from Paris.  Versailles has a program that allows for one chosen artist per year to work with the palace or it’s spectacular gardens where a grand exhibition of their work is installed.  Imagine strolling the intricate and historic gardens designed by French landscape artist Andre Le Notre in the 18th century and coming upon a sculpture by Takashi Murakami!  Other artists featured at Chateau Versailles include Jeff Koons, Bernar Venet among others.  This summer features Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Elliason.  While some of the works are so subtle that you might now realize that you are looking right at them, others mesmerize tremendous crowds.  Working with elements such as light, mirrors, fog, water, and earth, his installations are cleverly interwoven into the history of the chateau itself.

Day 7: Les Grandes Magasins
 
North of the Opera lay some of Paris’s most renowned department stores, featuring designer labels from around the world.   Les Grandes Magasins are, in themselves, an experience, especially by North American shopping mall standards.  While many go for the shopping, and stay for tea at Laduree in Printemps, or lunch under the stained glass domes, there is more.  Galeries Lafayette has it’s own exhibition space, aptly known as Galerie des Galeries.  This is a vibrant contemporary art space that often features the work of local Parisian artists and allows an opportunity for experimental art projects of the highest caliber.  This summer features TOILETPAPER, a collaboration between Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, which opens on July 6th.

Day 8: Saint-Germain de Près
 
Though Saint-Germain has many galleries, most are of a more decorative or design oriented type.  However, one of Paris’s best contemporary art dealers also has not one, but two spaces there.  Kamel Mennour represented an impressive stable of artists that include Anish Kapoor, Jake & Dinos Chapman, François Morellet and Duchamp Prize Winner Latifah Echakchch.  An exhibition of profound and stunning works by Japanese-Korean artist Lee Ufan recently opened at Galerie Kammel Mennour's 28 avenue Matignon space.  These minimalist works are both profound and stunning.  Nearby at Mennour's initial space at 28 avenue Matignon, an exhibition of photographs by controversial artist Nobuyoshi Araki are on view.

Day 9: The Pompidou Centre
 
Although the Pompidou Centre’s mandate is focused on modern art, some of the most impressive curated exhibitions of contemporary art that I have ever seen have been here at the Pomipdou.  Excellent examples of both French and international artists work can be seen here.  The Pompidou Centre’s partnership with ADIF (Association for the International Diffusion of French Contemporary Art) allows for the annual winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp to have a solo exhibition.  For those who don’t already know, the Prix Marcel Duchamp is France’s version of the U.K.’s Turner Prize.  The 2015 Laureate’s exhibition Melik Ohanian’s “Under Shadows” is currently on view in a fusion between poetry and science in an environment that expresses various dimensions.

Day 10: Paris Pantin
 
Though it may be a bit of a trek into unknown territory, it is well worth it to take the journey to Paris’s Pantin area.  As in any major city, real estate is at its prime rates in the most dense urban areas, so gallerists often seek space outside the core, transforming less desirable neighborhoods into vibrant, eclectic hubs of art and culture.  Thaddeus Ropac, for example, has opened a large project space in Pantin.  Other dealers like Jocelyn Wolfe and Creve Cœur have their main spaces located here.   The truly dedicated art professional will make the journey to Pantin.
 
By the time you have completed this itinerary, you will have seen some of the most important contemporary and historical neighborhoods of Paris, although this list is by no means exhausted.  Paris is an exceptional hub of cultural diversity at any time of the year, but the summer months are when it is most delightful to wander the city.  However, during the month of August is when most Parisians take their annual vacations and head for beachfront destinations.  You will find most galleries have closed their doors for the entire month, to resume their business again come September. 

- Holly Marie Armishaw (June 2016)

Holly Marie Armishaw is a Vancouver-based contemporary artist primarily using photography and digital imaging to create imaginary realms and states of being.  She is also an independent scholar on art, history and culture.

In an era marked by global political tensions between East and West, Shirin Neshat is one of the most poignantly relevant artists today.  However, given the current political climate, it is easy to misread the “Women of Allah” series, which first brought her notoriety as an artist.  A series of black and white images, containing four unifying visual elements: a woman donned in the traditional Islamic veil or chador, a rifle or Kalashnikov, poetry written in Farsi, and a gaze that confronts the viewer.  One would be mistaken to assume that these are portraits of female Islamic radicals or jihadists.  The complexity of the works requires some knowledge of the context in which they were created.  Firstly, “Women of Allah” was created between 1994- 97, several years before the pivotal turning point of 9/11 and the ensuing onslaught of Islamaphobia.

Born in Iran in 1957, Neshat grew up under the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who embraced Western ideologies and supported reforms that encouraged the education of women and instituted family laws to be more favourable towards women.  In Neshat’s late teens, during the mid 1970’s, her father sent her to the U.S. to pursue higher education in Los Angeles, California.  A few years later, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 broke out.  Citizens had grown weary of the Shah’s autocratic methods of governance and his lack of regard for the Islamic religion.  Unfortunately, his embrace of modernity and Westernism was tainted by this autocractic disregard for democratic methods.  Initially, many Iranian women began wearing the veil in the 70's as a form of protest against the Shah, both exhibiting the love of their religion and their rejection of the Shah's Western ideologies.  However, after the Islamic Revolution, suddenly women no longer had a choice.  The man that they had democratically placed in power, whom they put their trust in to uphold their values, turned on them, took away many of the rights and privileges that these women had grown up with, and, almost symbolically so, it became mandatory that women wear the veil in public at all times.

In 1991 Shirin Neshat was finally able to return to Iran and to be with her family.  But, Neshat has repeatedly said in public presentations, she no longer recognized her homeland, which had transformed into a state of Islamic fundamentalism.  Perhaps one of the most glaringly obvious visual signifiers of this theocratic transformation may have been that the face of women were literally, no longer visible.  In her talk at Princeton University Neshat stated “The women of Iran, historically, seem to embody the political transformations”.  She returned to the U.S. not so much inspired as compelled by the transformation that she had witnessed.  And so, in 1993, she began working on her “Women of Allah” series.  

Upon examining each of the four elements that appear in the works it seems that In their entirety the work is loaded with symbolism and fraught with contradictions.  The veil is simultaneously a symbol of repression and a rejection of Western ideology.  While many Westerners believe that the veil it is simply a repressive garment, the contradictory notion is that when covered, women are free from the repression of being an object of sexual desire through the male gaze.  Feminist Iranian poetry is written on the women’s faces, feet and hands, in essence “covering” those parts of a woman’s body, which are required to be covered.  But the covering by text in these works allows the women a voice where they are otherwise silenced.  The texts themselves are poems of female martyrdom by an Iranian woman, Tahereh Saffarzadeh.  Interestingly Neshat creates a contradiction because in Islamic Fundamentalist countries, “martyr” is a term most commonly reserved for men, whereas women are more likely to be ascribed the term “victim”.

Shirin Neshat states that she feels ambivalent about martyrdom.  While she is proud of the women of her homeland for challenging authority, there is a contradiction that she has captured in her portraits – the softness and beauty of their young skin with the coldness of the rifles, symbol of cruelty, violence and death.  She has found inspiration in the resilience of Iranian women who fought to defend their borders when Iraq attacked Iran in 1980, hoping to take advantage at the point of political instability, in what is now known as the Persian Gulf War.  Women have also been at the forefront of peaceful demonstrations, banding together in several protests including the Green Movement and the Arab Spring.  It is these women that Neshat admires for their courage.

Without forgetting her own Western education and influence, and having gone to university in the U.S. at the crux of second-wave feminism in the 1970’s, Shirin Neshat has imbued her subjects with a gaze that simultaneously confronts and defies the male gaze.  Perhaps the most poignant image in the series is this one pictured below, in which the face of the women is bisected by the barrel of the rifle, just as Shirin Neshat’s own life and has been bisected by Islamic and Western influences.

Exiled from her homeland of Iran since 1996, Shirin Neshat has been living a nomadic lifestyle as an artist.  Her oeuvre has extended beyond the still photograph into film and video.  Her 2009 film “Women Without Men” won the Silver Lion Prize for Best Directing at the Venice Film Festival.  Although shot in Morocco due to Shirin’s ban from Iran, the film takes us back to the Iranian capital of Tehran to a pivotal time in Iranian history, which informs much of Neshat’s earlier work.  It is set in 1953, the year when a coup d’etat encouraged and backed by British and American armed forces overthrew Iran’s then democratically elected president and instated the Shah as ruler of Iran.

Continuing to explore gender roles of Iranian women, “Women Without Men” follows the tale of four women of varying age and class, brought together by a rejection of male oppression.  Munis, who is interested in political activism, lives under the tyranny of her brother who tells her that he will break her legs if she leaves the house, eventually driving her to dive off the roof of their home, or at least imagines she does.  The novel the filmis based upon draws upon "creative realism" allowing Munis to come back from her suicide in a second life where she comes as goes wherever she desires, at free will.  Munis's best friend, Faezeh, is raped by two men one afternoon after gazing into a cafe where women are not allowed; she is understandably traumatized after the event.  The young Zarin is confined to a life of enslavement as a prostitute, ravaging both her physical and mental health.  Fakhri an older, upper-class housewife of a military general, is told by her husband that if she can no longer satisfy him sexually, he will take a younger wife.  Having the most liberty of all the women featured, she leaves him, purchasing a villa in the countryside as a place for escape to begin a new life free from his presence and repression.  Seeking refuge 3 of the women eventually find each other in the orchard and recover together in the villa where they can exist in freedom, without their veils of oppression.  However, when men arrive at the orchard one night for a party, their secure haven is “raped” by their presence.  The most fragile of them, Zarin, loses her life, perhaps in fear that she will never be safe.  The film was adapted from the novel by Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, which is banned in Iran.

The film "Women Without Men" exemplifies the strong, beautiful, and poignant style that has marked the still photographic works of Shirin Neshat.  With its myriad of layers, the film is infinitely complex - weaving together both national and gender politics.  No two characters are alike - ranging from the most traditional Islamic young women who are still virgins as they near the age of 30 and won't (or can't leave) their homes without a suitable escort or donning a chandor, to the very Westernized, culturally elite older woman who enters public places like restaurants without a veil, smokes cigarettes, listens to music and sings, purchases property without her husbands presence, drives about in an American automobile, and throws parties for the like of artists, actors, and other well-to do socialites. 

The film beautifully captures the depth of each character and their internal states through a physical terrain.  Drawing from Shirin Neshat's earlier use of poetic symbolism, this physical terrain is poetically depicted in the forms of the hard concrete streets and buildings of Tehran; a long, lonely road leading to the possibility of change; a wall that separates the orchard from the outside world (as seen above) with an opening small enough to enter as water flows freely through it; the dark, barren forest; the dense foggy marsh that Zarin is found floating nearly dead in (seen below); and the lush jungle-like garden which rays of sunshine pierce through in a stroke of optimisim.  The orchard becomes a place where these women can escape their veils of oppression, as so poignantly conveyed by the veil dropped outside the wall.

Outside the garden walls, back in the city, all is not well as the political climate comes to a boil.  Like a barometer throughout the film, Zarin's health, which had been improving in her new surroundings of hope, finally takes a turn for the worst as the military clashes with the Iranian citizens, overthrowing the democratic government and instating the Shah to power. 

"This film is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Iran from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Green Movement of 2009." (Women Without Men)

Critics have compared “I Am Malala” to the iconic historical autobiography “Anne Frank’s Diary”.  The former is an autobiography of a young girl growing up in a Pakistani village as the Taliban seizes control.  So pertinent to this era, Malala’s story sheds light on a perspective that no major media agency could ever hope to.  It is an invaluable reminder that the spread of Islamic radicalization affects more than just global superpowers; it is about more than just the cost of oil, international politics, or the growing threat of terrorism against Westerners.  It is about the imposition of radical and repressive systems on an otherwise peaceful way of life for millions of ordinary people in the countries throughout which it spreads.

Using a dedicated radio station, which soon became the only one allowed, the Talibs (religious men) quickly had the entire Swat valley abiding by their every word.  They encouraged the burning of CD’s, DVD’s and TV’s and the shops that sold them were shut down in an attempt to isolate the public from knowledge and to deter Western influence.  Citizens were either publically praised or shamed for following or ignoring the teachings of the local on-air Mullah.  Vaccinations were banned and during Ramadan, the Taliban shutoff the electricity and clean water source, leaving many sick and dead from cholera.  They seized on opportunities like the devastating earthquake of October 2005 in Pakistan to take the newly orphaned and homeless children into madrasas (religious schools) where they trained them in military jihadism.  Curfews were established and strict rules of purdah were imposed. 

It is women who were subject to the strictest interpretation of purdah.  Purdah, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, means “the practice in certain Muslim or Hindu societies of screening women from men or strangers, especially by means of a curtain” and/or “a state of seclusion or secrecy”.  It originated from early 19th century Perdu and the Persian word “parda” meaning veil or curtain.  The most common form of purdah outside of the home is a garment known as a burqa, which may or may not include a yashnak, a veil that conceals the face where the eyes may or may not be exposed.  One day in the market Malala’s mother and cousin were stopped by a Talib. “ ‘If I see you wearing a scarf but no burqa I will beat you,’ he said.  My mother is not easily scared and remained composed.  ‘Yes, OK.  We will wear burqas in the future,’ she told him.  My mother always covers her head, but the burqa is not part of our Pashtun tradition.”[1]  At first women were required to leave the house only when accompanied by a male family member, but later were banned from the market entirely and told that they should not leave the home except in an emergency. 

“Then MMA activists launched attacks on cinemas and tore down billboards with pictures of women or blackened them out with paint.  They even snatched female mannequins from clothing shops.  They harassed men wearing western-style shirts instead of the traditional shalwar kamiz and insisted that women cover their heads.  It was as though they wanted to remove all traces of womankind from public life.”[2]

Public whippings were witnessed for the first time.  Bodies began to appear in the “bloody” square each morning, for everyone to see on their way to work.  The greatest impositions were placed on the most vulnerable – women and girls.  “One day I saw my father and his friends watching a video on his phone.  It was a shocking scene.  A teenage girl wearing a black burqa and red trousers was lying face down on the ground and being flogged in broad daylight by a bearded man in a black turban.  ‘Please stop it! She begged in Pashto between screams and whimpers as each blow was delivered.  ‘In the name of Allah, I am dying!’  You could hear the Taliban shouting, ‘Hold her down.  Hold her hands down.’…They hit her thirty-four times.  A crowd had gathered but did nothing.  One of the woman’s relatives even volunteered to hold her down.’ “  The local Khan confirmed that the film was genuine.  “She came out of her house with a man who was not her husband, so we had to punish her,’ he said, ‘Some boundaries cannot be crossed.’ “[3]

Malala had been reading the Quran, creating a direct translation from Arabic to her native tongue of Urdu, allowing her to “know” the Quran and it’s teachings first-hand.  However, the majority of Pakistani followers of Islam cannot speak of read Arabic, and so were ignorant to the misinterpretations being broadcast by the local Mullah.

As the Taliban further imposed their agenda, hundreds of schools were burned throughout the country.  Living in constant fear that theirs would be next, Malala’s father, Ziauddin, was told to close down his school, as it was “haram” (sinful).   One day seven men came to their house and declared  ‘I am representing good Muslims and we all think your girls school is haram and a blasphemy.  You should close it.  Girls should not be going to school,’ he continued.  ‘A young girl is so sacred that she should be in purdah, and so private that there is no lady’s name in the Quran, as God doesn’t want her to be named.’ “[4]   After shooting down his argument with a prime example of a woman in the Quran, Ziauddin refused to succumb to the pressure, and received frequent death threats as a result.   However, it was Malala who would eventually be targeted and shot.

Having a keen passion for learning, the encouragement of her father, a solid comprehension of the Quran, and the understanding of the dangers of the misguided interpretations and teachings of the Taliban, Malala became an out-spoken advocate for the education of girls, for all children.  She recognized the irony that Talibs believed that girls should be educated by women and treated by women doctors, but that if they weren’t allowed to go to school, then they would never be able to fill those positions. 

It is precisely because Malala’s account of life under Islamic radicalism is not unique, similar to Anne Frank's account under Nazi rule, that it is so important.  Of course, Malala's reaction was nothing short of heroic, which makes her an exceptional role model for social consciousness across the globe.  And while she is most noted for advocating education for girls, particularly in developing countries, it is not just that girls should have a right to education, everyone should have a right to education.  Advocating education as a basic humanitarian right is Malala’s solution to establishing worldwide peace.  The act of denying education to certain groups of people in order to repress them is nothing new in tactics of war.  Keeping people ignorant so that they are unable to make educated decisions about their own lives, that of their family’s and that of their country’s, enables others control over the fate of others.  Malala, through her message, is lifting that veil of ignorance.


[1] Yousafzai, Malala.  “I Am Malala” (New York: Bay Back Books, 2013), pg. 169

[2] Yousafzai, pg. 97.

[3] Yousafzai, pg. 170-71.

[4] Yousafzai, pg. 94.