The art came out this Sunday inNew yorkin support of the Iranian women’s fight against the theocratic regime of the ayatollahs. The French artist JR presented one of her performances with the face of a young woman killed in the riots in Iran and her hair in the wind made up of people.
"As an artist, one often wonders how we can help causes that are just and that, in some way, concern many people in the world, many women, especially at this time in Iran."explained to AFP Jean René, the name behind the artistic name of this graffiti artist.
After several weeks of reflection, it occurred to him to use volunteers to shape the hair of the young Nika Shakarimi, who died at the age of 16 in the protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, on September 16, after being detained by the morality police for wearing the Islamic veil wrong.
An aunt of the victim provided JR with one of the last images Nika used on social media, which has since been taken down.
In the Park of the Four Freedoms of Roosevelt Island, an island in the middle of the East River that runs along the east side of Manhattan, in front of the UN building, her hair came to life with a group of people to the rhythm of an icy wind.
That photo "counted a lot for the family"assured the artist who presented his work for the first time in Brazil.
"On our small scale it is one of the few that we can do (…) to draw attention to the fact that on the other side of the world, we think of all these women and the people who fight"said JR, who in 2018 was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and who has waged battles to raise awareness about the wall that separates the United States and Mexico, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and more recently, the war in Ukraine.
Iranian architect Aila Ahkhmi, 36, who took part in the event along with more than a hundred participants, hopes that "our voice" reach Iran, where "unfortunately, both the people and the activists and artists cannot raise their voices because they are immediately arrested and sent to jail".
This event is part of the campaign "eyes on iran" promoted by Iranian women from organizations such as For Freedoms, Vital Voices and the global coalition Women, Life, Freedom, which at its launch, on November 28, had the participation of the former candidate for the presidency of the United States, Hillary Clinton.
The campaign works so that the UN expels Iran from the Commission on the Legal and Social Condition of Women, in a vote that will take place on December 14.
More than 300 people have died, according to official data -448 according to NGOs- in the bloody repression of the most serious protests faced by the Iranian regime since the Islamic revolution of 1979. More than 15,000 have been detained according to the UN Special Rapporteur in Iran.
