Last night I saw a talk by a young Iranian-Canadian photographer named Kiana Hayeri (notably in the same room where I saw a talk last month on the future of the aircraft carrier. That’s MIT, baby!)

“Mona,” before and after. Credit: Kiana Hayeri

Her work is focused on how young people in Iran define themselves–specifically their images and appearances–in the context of the country’s oppressive regime with its “morality police” and real police. She earned the trust of enough young women to be able to photograph them before and after their elaborate make-up and head-covering rituals. The side by side photos, as well as a short movie of one woman’s ritual, strike me and Amy mostly because the women are so much more provocative / sexualized in appearance “after” than in the privacy of their homes. The title of one of her projects, “Your Veil is a Battleground,” plays on the 1989 feminist artist Barbara Kruger’s well-known “Your Body is a Battleground.”

They see me rollin/They hatin/They tryin catch me ridin dirty. Credit: Kiana Hayeri

At the talk Hayeri described a run-in she had with the ladies of the morality police, who pulled her over from the sidewalk for wearing leggings instead of pants. Luckily for her she was able to find a relative to bring some officially acceptable modest pants to the morality police station. Hayeri showed side by side photos of herself before and after this incident, and the difference between “immoral” before and “moral” after is barely perceptible.

“Dena,” before and after. Credit: Kiana Hayeri

As one of the Iranian people in the audience pointed out, even the ladies of the morality police pay a lot of attention to their makeup and appearance.

Hayeri’s next project is photographing the network of underground art and cultural spaces that people have put together in Tehran and elsewhere around Iran. Her work gives the tantalizing hint of the common interests and connections Americans might form with Iranians once they get out from under their brutal political/religious regime.