Woman, Life, Freedom: Year Zero

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Saturday, September 16 at 5pm for Woman, Life, Freedom: Year Zero, a screening of works by Iranian artists and activists Jinoos Taghizadeh, Tanin Torabi, and members of the Art/Culture/Action collective (ACA). The screening will be followed by a conversation between ACA member Nazanin Noroozi, and the event’s guest curators Sandra Skurvida and Barbad Golshiri. 

We are approaching the first anniversary of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement led by Iranian women, who resolutely said “no” to patriarchal and religious control over their bodies. Iranian artists in the country and across the world are engaging in actions and performances to celebrate their historic achievement, protest against the Islamic State of Iran’s crackdown on the dissidents who have been courageously standing against the systemic suppression of human rights, and mourn the loss of hundreds of people who have been killed by the regime, including the killing of Jina Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022.

The Year Zero marks revolutionary beginnings: In Iran at least since the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, women have been a force of change. Today—after the state killing of Jina Mahsa Amini—they’ve become the harbingers of the revolution known as “Woman, Life, Freedom.”

Films

Jinoos Taghizadeh, Good Night (2009, 22 minutes)
Mothers sing lullabies to their children so they can sleep peacefully. Revolutionary anthems are composed to awaken, encourage, and inspire. A child sleeps in a white cradle on a red floor next to a green wall—the colors of the Iranian flag. The cradle rocks like a pendulum, and Iranian revolutionary anthems that had been sung by marching men thirty years ago are now sung by a female voice, in a slow tempo resembling a lullaby. These anthems speak of pain, blood, and uprising; of death and the martyrdom of youth; of rebellion; of passion for freedom and a brighter future, away from darkness and despotism. But the child is peacefully asleep, a long-lasting sleep. The revolutionary spirit that was supposed to awaken the child has put it to sleep. The lullaby became a rousing cry in 2009, the year of the Green Movement in Iran.

Tanin Torabi, Until (2023, 13 minutes)
“We walk. We run. We fall. We hug those we love and then we run again. We walk together until the walls move.” 

Art/Culture/Action,  تو نامری / You Will Not Die (May-August 2023)
The names of the innocent people who insisted on their right to be free, their ages, and the date and place of their deaths are documented and read by members of the ACA collective. This information has been sourced from the databases of human rights organizations and extensive additional investigation.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility                   
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.        
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.                 
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.