When Mobina Nouri was growing up in Isfahan, Iran, in the 1980s, she remembers how “most of my friends wished we were boys instead of girls.”
It was a longing based in logic, according to Nouri, a multidisciplinary visual and performance artist who’s lived in the Bay Area since 2018. Boys in the Islamic Republic could dress as they wished, ride bikes and run around with their hair uncovered. As they got older, unlike young women, they could move freely in public and travel without permission or scandal.
“The truth is, I hated to be a woman when I was in Iran,” Nouri told The Chronicle during an interview at her Cow Hollow apartment. “There were so many stupid rules, so much oppression. All we wanted was freedom.”
Nouri spoke passionately about her support for the Iranian protesters who are currently demanding an end to women’s oppression, as she put the final touches on the props for her upcoming performance at the Legion of Honor on Saturday, Jan. 28.
She explained that it was only after moving to London for graduate school in 2010 that Nouri started to embrace a complex pride in her femininity and explorethemes of women’s empowerment in her work. She’s become best known for her detailed line drawings in black and goldas well asher nude photos of female models, including herself, in athletic poses, their bodies covered in intricate Persian calligraphy.
“If I write the poetry on paper, it’s beautiful, but if I write it on bodies, it’s forbidden,” said Nouri, whose work is banned in Iran.
When her home country started convulsing with protests in September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Nouri stopped working on two-dimensional artwork and devoted all her energy to demonstrating. She marched weekly on the Golden Gate Bridge and searched for an artistic expression of solidarity for the brave girls and women of Iran who were publicly cutting their hair, discarding their hijabs and risking their lives to renounce gender apartheid.
In November, Nouri incorporated the names and faces of individuals imprisoned in Iran (which the artist known asthe Miladposts on Instagram) into an original performance, “The Wind in My Hair,” in Clarion Alley. She wore a red velvet dress covered in small scissors and stood with long strands of her hair tied to the alley’s gate, each strand bound to a detainee’s image. She invited participants to cut her locks, keep the images and “feel that in the act of cutting, they are helping make someone free,” she said.
Nouri will reprise the performance at the Legion of Honor’s outdoor Court of Honor, accompanied by musicians Mohammad Hassanzadeh and Nima Sepehr. Ahead of the demonstration, she spoke about the emotional power of interactive art and her hope that “2023 brings real freedom for Iranian women.”
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What do you remember felt most restrictive as a girl growing up in Iran?
A:Everything was constrictive. Can you believe I was arrested with my three brothers? We were in the car together, three siblings headed to a mountain, and the police stopped us. They asked for our documents, asked us, “What’s your relationship?” They put me in one place away from my brothers. It was so scary. Every Iranian woman has had these kinds of experiences.
Q: After Mahsa Amini’s death sparked widespread protests in Iran, did you feel the need to use your art as a form of activism?
A:I never before called myself an activist, and I don’t say it even now. I’m an artist — but being a woman in Iran is political. And I’m a more political person since leaving Iran. I can’t go back because my work is about women.
After (the protests began in Iran), I felt I should direct my art only towardthat cause. A friend of mine had made a mural the year before in Clarion Alley of five women held as prisoners inside Iran. I chose to use the gate there and the symbol of this revolution in Iran, which is hair. Mahsa was killed because she was told her hair wasn’t properly covered. When women around the world started to cut their hair in solidarity, the idea came to me one night that it would be very interesting to be interactive and have people cut the hair themselves. A friend boundmy hair to the gate, and I wore a (blindfold) and cut the first piece, then invited people to come up and cut themselves until I was cut free.
When it was finished, everyone was crying, including myself. It was very, very emotional.
Q: Will your performance at the Legion of Honor be similar?
A:At the Legion, I will use the columns instead of a gate, with the strands of hair bending through and around the columns while music, the sounds of Iran, play. Toward the end there’s a song sung by the young girlNika (Shakarami), who we can hear laughing and who was killed after a protest. My plan is to have this performance in different cities but exactly the same concept.
Q: Why did you title your piece “The Wind inMy Hair,” after the memoir by Iranian journalist in exile Masih Alinejad?
A:Her book is incredibly powerful, and she’s been one of the most important people for a long time talking about these issues. She started the #whitewednesdays movement five or six years ago, asking girls inside Iran to remove their hijab and take photos. “The Wind in My Hair” is the name of her life story, and it is also the name of a poem by (14thcentury Persian poet) Hafiz. Remember, this all started because of hair, but it is not just about hair. Hair is a powerful symbol.
Q: In Clarion Alley, you wrote “Be the voice of Iran” on your hand. Will you do that again?
A:This time I just want to write “Hope.” We are all very hopeful this time is different. People are feeling more and more anger against the government and that won’t stop. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes.
Mobina Nouri’s “The Wind in My Hair”:1-1:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28. Free. Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave., S.F. 415-750-3600.www.famsf.org