In light of the current fashion trends among young Iranian women, "Miss Hybrid" aims at capturing the aesthetic nuances that shape, reshape and reinvent the identity of the new Iranian girl.
Under the hospice of the Islamic veil, the "in look" is blond hair, blue, green or grey contact lenses, occasional facial piercing and most importantly, surgical nose tape which seems to have become a fashion “must have” among the targeted group. Miss Hybrid can be seen as a make-believe alternative beauty pageant believing that natural beauty is unfair, elitist and practically irrelevant, while artificial beauty sparked by an insatiable need to transform into someone else, via cosmetic intervention, can be regarded as a healthy exercise in cultural rebellion and global integration, therefore, considered fair game and worthy of attention.
This project explores the creative formal aspects of censorship as seen in this collection of vintage local and western-censored magazines in Iran. Before young girls reach puberty they can be dressed up and made to look beautiful in the western sense of the word. It is because this similar portrayal of adult women is censored, magazine editors use instead images of young girls on the cover, as a loophole from censorship to sell their magazines. The general public has no moral dilemma accepting the sexualization of young girls as a norm. For the artists, this presents a fascinating contradiction in light of the ongoing battle between religious beliefs and pop culture.
About the Innovative Creator and Photographer - SHIRIN ALIABADI
Born in Teheran, (Iran), in 1973
EDUCATION
Graduates from the Art History and Archeology, University of Paris I, Paris
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 IRAN.COM - Iranian Art Today, Museum for New Art in Freiburg, Germany
WOMAN: Self-Portrait, curated by Dalit Anolik, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, New York
2005 WELCOME, curated by Farhad Moshiri, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, New York
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Bildmuseet Ume, University College of Fine Arts, Ume
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Yeans (artist-run-space), Gothenburg
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Unge Kunstnerers Samfund Great Britain
(The Association of Young Artists), Olso-It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Tallinn Kunsthalle, Tallinn
2004 Far Near Distance, curated by Rose Issa, House of World Cultures, Berlin
Ethnic marketing, curated by Martine Anderfuhren and Tirdad Zolghadr, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva
It’s hard to touch the real, Kunstverein, Munich
2003 Iranian Pool, curated by Maria Chus Martinez, Casa
Asia/ARCO, Madrid
Casa Asia, curated by Maria Chus Martinez, Barcelona
Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, Sweden
Haft, curated by Michket Krifa, l’Espace Landowski, Ville De
Boulogne-Billancourt
For more informationn on the artist and the photograph, please contact:
Kashya Hildebrand
GalleryTalstrasse 58
8001 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel: +41 44 210 02 02
Fax: +41 44 210 02 15
Eyes in Photography - Iran - Switserland - Shirin Aliabadi
In light of the current fashion trends among young Iranian women, "Miss Hybrid" aims at capturing the aesthetic nuances that shape, reshape and reinvent the identity of the new Iranian girl.
Under the hospice of the Islamic veil, the "in look" is blond hair, blue, green or grey contact lenses, occasional facial piercing and most importantly, surgical nose tape which seems to have become a fashion “must have” among the targeted group. Miss Hybrid can be seen as a make-believe alternative beauty pageant believing that natural beauty is unfair, elitist and practically irrelevant, while artificial beauty sparked by an insatiable need to transform into someone else, via cosmetic intervention, can be regarded as a healthy exercise in cultural rebellion and global integration, therefore, considered fair game and worthy of attention.
This project explores the creative formal aspects of censorship as seen in this collection of vintage local and western-censored magazines in Iran. Before young girls reach puberty they can be dressed up and made to look beautiful in the western sense of the word. It is because this similar portrayal of adult women is censored, magazine editors use instead images of young girls on the cover, as a loophole from censorship to sell their magazines. The general public has no moral dilemma accepting the sexualization of young girls as a norm. For the artists, this presents a fascinating contradiction in light of the ongoing battle between religious beliefs and pop culture.
About the Innovative Creator and Photographer - SHIRIN ALIABADI
Born in Teheran, (Iran), in 1973
EDUCATION
Graduates from the Art History and Archeology, University of Paris I, Paris
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 IRAN.COM - Iranian Art Today, Museum for New Art in Freiburg, Germany
WOMAN: Self-Portrait, curated by Dalit Anolik, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, New York
2005 WELCOME, curated by Farhad Moshiri, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, New York
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Bildmuseet Ume, University College of Fine Arts, Ume
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Yeans (artist-run-space), Gothenburg
It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Unge Kunstnerers Samfund Great Britain
(The Association of Young Artists), Olso-It’s hard to touch the real (Tour), Tallinn Kunsthalle, Tallinn
2004 Far Near Distance, curated by Rose Issa, House of World Cultures, Berlin
Ethnic marketing, curated by Martine Anderfuhren and Tirdad Zolghadr, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva
It’s hard to touch the real, Kunstverein, Munich
2003 Iranian Pool, curated by Maria Chus Martinez, Casa
Asia/ARCO, Madrid
Casa Asia, curated by Maria Chus Martinez, Barcelona
Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, Sweden
Haft, curated by Michket Krifa, l’Espace Landowski, Ville De
Boulogne-Billancourt
For more informationn on the artist and the photograph, please contact:
Kashya Hildebrand
GalleryTalstrasse 58
8001 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel: +41 44 210 02 02
Fax: +41 44 210 02 15