Photographic Centre Peri’s Kilta Gallery: Elham Rahmati – Questions For My Aunts

The figure of the Muslim woman has long been constructed in the Western consciousness as a passive, victimised subject devoid of agency, positioned in need of rescue. A narrative meticulously crafted to be weaponised as a moral pretext to manufacture public consent for endless Western military interventions; bombs that fall on the women and their families, all in the name of souverniring the imperial gifts of freedom and democracy.

Questions For My Aunts is a video work centered on a candid conversation between the artist and six women in her family—her mother, aunts, and grandmother—who come from a moderately religious, middle-class background in Iran. The discussion—taking place a month before the beginning of the Israeli-US war on Iran—traces shifting attitudes toward the hijab and its enforcement, both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, highlighting how personal beliefs, state power, and social expectations have collided and evolved over time. Set against the backdrop of the transformative 2022 Jin, Jian, Azadi movement, through the deeply contested question of Hijab, the conversation reveals concerns that shape women’s lives in Iran.

Questions For My Aunts offers a more nuanced, layered look on hijab—one that neither vilifies nor celebrates, but instead points to the political and personal contradictions and transformations that it has carried for women. By anchoring the piece in the experiences of the women of one family unit, it reflects a broader truth: women’s encounters with injustice, and resistance, are as diverse as they are. While no two women’s experiences of these struggles are identical, they come together in strategic sisterhood, forging solidarity—even in disagreement—through shared purpose, negotiation, and love. 

Commissioned by the Finnish Museum of Photography for the exhibition Invisible Race, this video would be an honor to share with the audience at the Photographic Centre Peri in Turku.

Elham Rahmati (b. 1989, Tehran) is a visual artist and co-founder/co-editor of NO NIIN Magazine. Recognising that collective memory is constantly evolving and never fixed, her practice engages with the politics of memory. Seeking to create spaces for interpretation and re/construction of the past through revisiting memories that endure, not through official preservation, but because they are lived: carried through stories, gestures, and rituals within families.

Opening on Night of the Arts Thursday, August 13th, 5-10pm.

Guided tour on Turku Day Sunday, September 20th, 1pm.