It deceives you, this red hue imprinted on the sky is no crimson dawn,
O Friend! It is a frost-numbed ear, the mark of winter’s icy slap.
And the cramped heavens’ frozen light, dead or alive,
Lies hidden in the nine-layered, death-laden casket of darkness.
Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Winter (1956)
Mehdi Akhavan Sales wrote these lines in the oppressive years following the 1953 coup that ended a brief era of free expression in Iran under Mohammad Mosaddegh’s premiership. With Mohammad Reza Pahlavi once again wielding almost unchecked power as Shah, the government soon began a wave of arrests, banned opposition parties, and exerted tighter censorship over the media and the arts. Some of Iran’s most prominent writers, including Akhavan Sales himself, were imprisoned for their critical work.
And yet, the poet and his contemporaries fought on. The 1960s and 1970s saw a wealth of politically charged writing from the likes of Nima Youshij (the father of free verse poetry in Iran), Ahmad Shamlou, Simin Behbahani, and Forough Farrokhzad (widely regarded as Iran’s greatest female poet).
This movement extended far beyond poetry. In painting, sculpture, cinema, theatre, and music, political expression became an inseparable part of art. Iranian artists of this period used covert language to circumvent censorship as they challenged repression. But there was also more direct and defiant criticism, visible in the works of figures such as writer and folklorist Samad Behrangi, journalist and poet Khosro Golsorkhi, and cartoonist Ardeshir Mohasses.
However, the 1979 revolution, the culmination of decades of struggle and protest, ultimately brought about further repression and censorship.
Art under the Islamic Republic
Just a year after the Pahlavi dynasty collapsed, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, which led to a bloody eight-year war. Although the conflict posed a significant threat to the newly minted Islamic Republic, it also allowed the regime to consolidate ideological control. Streets across the country were adorned with murals, posters, and billboards featuring fallen fighters, as well as religious figures and Iranian political officials. Moreover, radio and television produced a slew of programmes with themes of mourning, as the government attempted to instill a Shiite “culture of bereavement” while systematically marginalising deeply cherished, non-Islamic festivals.
It was also during the war with Iraq that the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) was established, creating a comprehensive censorship regime. This body oversees all arts and cultural institutions in the country, and its approval is needed for all artistic works meant for public consumption. It also has complete control over public funding for artistic production and uses grants, work bans, and other tactics to force artists into submission. Works that do not comply with the MCIG’s notoriously opaque “Islamic principles” are either censored or banned. Persecution and imprisonment are rampant, too.
Violence against artists reached a peak during the 1988-1998 “Chain Murders”, when more than 80 activists, artists, and thinkers were killed or disappeared. The government at first denied involvement but then blamed the murders on “rogue elements”. No transparent trial was ever held to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Yet Iranian artists never stopped producing political works. Instead, they developed tactics to evade the state’s censorship apparatus.
Across different fields, Iranian artists have used symbolism and figurative language to convey social and political critique. As a result, metaphors, allegories, and fables are prevalent in artworks, while genres like surrealism and absurdism have become widely popular. At the same time, an underground scene has emerged where artists work away from public scrutiny and without obtaining formal permission from the MCIG. Moreover, works by anonymous artists appear on walls and online, openly challenging the government’s censorship and spatial dominance. But the event that led to the most remarkable outburst of artistic freedom and political expression in the Islamic Republic’s history was the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini in 2022.
Woman, Life, Freedom
When news broke out that Mahsa Amini had died after allegedly being beaten by morality police officers for not wearing her hijab “properly”, Iranians from all over the country rose in defiance. At her funeral, women collectively removed their headscarves as crowds chanted “woman, life, freedom!”, which quickly became the slogan of the “Mahsa Revolution”. Soon, images and artworks showing her on life support took the internet by storm.
From the outset, art and artists were integral to the struggle. Singers and rappers like Mehdi Yarrahi, Toomaj Salehi, and Saman Yasin produced songs criticising the government’s corruption and calling on citizens to revolt. Two weeks into the protests, Shervin Hajipour released Baraye (“because of” or “for the sake of”), a song whose lyrics drew on a wave of tweets by Iranians mentioning their reasons for bringing about a revolution. Baraye was taken down days later under government pressure, but not before amassing tens of millions of views and becoming “the anthem of the revolution”. Some of the most famous names in Iranian cinema also supported the movement, including a number of female actors who denounced mandatory hijab.
The artworks of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement engaged in conversation with both Iranian and foreign cultural outputs. A Persian rendition of Bella Ciao; a poster juxtaposing Tehran’s famous Azadi (“Freedom”) Tower with Henri Matisse’s Dance; graphic designs featuring poems from the cherished 11th-century epic Book of Kings; and revolutionary songs inspired by Chilean protest anthems – they all tell the story of a movement that is every bit as artistic as it is political.
