Teenagers Series

My Moslem Teenager series confounds more than it confirms Eastern or Western cultural expectations. With this group of images I delve into the complex experience of teenage girls, and more specifically the experience of teens living in the Islamic world and within expectations of an Islamic identity. However, I would hope that the lives of my teenagers defy broad characterization and resist reductive stereotyping.

Teenagers as a group are constantly aware of themselves, especially as individuals caught between cultures. In Iran in particular, these teens exist in and partake of the larger adult culture that surrounds them while participating in another culture exclusive to teens. The two worlds, however, are not mutually exclusive; the teens are at home in multiple cultures simultaneously. Teenage girls in particular become extremely focused on matters of appearance and spend a good deal of time trying to create a visual self-image. They eagerly imitate what they see in popular culture, drawing on images from magazines, Internet, and TV to express themselves. There is a certain theatricality inherent to this adolescent performance which I play up in my work. Since they are covered, the viewer gets a chance to peek into the room and observe their mundane life-the details of which escape and, hopefully, undo fixed, reductive black and white notions held both by Islamic and, particularly, Western society.