Women for Peace: Voices of hope and humanity

“Women for Peace” is a unique concept-concert that unites voices from around the world to promote reconciliation, hope, and solidarity and peace. The initiative blends opera and storytelling to highlight women as agents of peace. It uses music as a universal language capable of bridging cultures, inspiring reflection, and sending a clear message: peace is not a luxury, it is a human necessity.

Forooz Razavi and Serena Malfi during a rehearsal. Courtesy Vatican News.

by Linda Bordoni, Vatican News

Rome’s Palazzo Farnese opened its doors on Monday evening to host Women for Peace, a special concept-concert produced by the non-profit organisation Opera for Peace. Far more than a traditional concert, the event is designed as an immersive experience: a blend of music, storytelling, and stage design that highlights the voices of women with a message of resilience, reconciliation, and hope.

Vatican Radio joined a rehearsal in the run-up to the event and was treated to a sneak preview featuring singers Serena Malfi, Pumeza Matshikiza and Forooz Razavi, coached and accompanied on piano by Kamal Khan, the co-founder and Musical Director of the organisation, and Michel El Ghoul, Art & Production Design Director.

“This is not only a concert,” says Julia Lagahuzère, general director and co-founder of Opera for Peace. “This is a moment for us to honour women all around the world who have done such incredible actions for the next generation. To be able to pass forward this kind of message in such an important venue is really a very special moment.”

Persian Poet: A Woman Made of Fire

Courtesy Persian Poet and UP Magazine.

by Stained Napkins, UP Magazine

As a poet, I’m always looking at words throughout the city, whether it be the ‘you look beautiful today’ message posted at my train station or newspaper headlines when at my local corner store. However, none of these words have been as profound or as consistent as the words of Persian Poet.

Persian Poet, who was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, has been writing poetry her entire life, beginning as early as elementary school when she stitched together a hardcover book of poems about family for an assignment. It’s come natural to her ever since. Inspired by the short yet visceral and thought-provoking poetry by Rupi Kaur, Yung Pueblo and the original Iranian poets like Hafez and Rumi.

Persian Poet’s work often explores themes of self-improvement and healing. In one of her poems, she writes, “sometimes we have to grow apart to grow closer to who we are meant to be.” A characteristic of her poetry is how the reader inserts themselves into it. I’ve found myself one way or another in most of her work. My favorite is: “time is the only currency that never loses value so be mindful how you spend it.” Time is a big theme within my poetry and as someone who’s constantly trying to get his head out of the past and be present, this poem serves as a reminder that time is not as disposible as we think.

This Memoir Is a Bridge to Iranian Solidarity

Journalists Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour discuss the political legacy of women in Iran in “For The Sun After Long Nights”

Courtesy Electric Literature.

by Bareerah Y. Ghani, Electric Lit

For The Sun After Long Nights is an unflinching record of Iranian women’s resilience and strength against their country’s oppressive regime. The authors, Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour, are Iranian journalists who corresponded and—in Jamalpour’s case—reported from the ground as the largest uprising in the history of the Islamic Republic unfolded. 

The book centers the revolutionary moment when the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement erupted in 2022 after a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jîna Amini, was arrested and beaten to death by the city’s morality police for not adhering to Iran’s hijab rule. Suddenly, at least two million Iranians, led by young women and members of Gen Z, took to the streets to express their outrage. These young women, Jamalpour included, exchanged notes with poetry and slogans that fueled the resistance even as the regime cracked down with arrests, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Miles away in self-imposed exile, Tabrizy started covering the protests for The New York Times, analysing video and images shared by Iranians on social media. Caught in the cascade of events, Jamalpour and Tabrizy started exchanging emails despite the risk to Jamalpour, who could be imprisoned for communicating with a Western journalist. Together, they bore witness to young girls and elderly women standing up to police; young women cutting their hair; Iranians chanting “Death to the Islamic Republic.” This book captures that moment and then expands outward, recounting stories from the authors’ lives and those of the women who came before them. Together, Tabrizy and Jamalpour unveil the role of women in Iran’s revolutionary past, and deftly illuminate the blurry line between the personal and political.

Despite red tape from US sanctions, Tehran-based gallery champions Iranian art at The Armory Show

Owner of O Gallery says her participation affirms ‘importance of cultural dialogue at a time when exchange across borders is increasingly fraught’

Minoo Yalsohrabi, Let Me Know if You Need a Hand, 2024. © the artist and courtesy O Gallery and The Art Newspaper.

by Anny Shaw, The Art Newspaper

An Iranian gallery participating in The Armory Show (until 7 September) in New York for the first time has been subjected to US sanctions, which has meant its location has been removed from the fair’s website and its presence has not been promoted—in line with US government regulations adopted in 2019.

At the end of last month, O Gallery’s name was completely removed from The Armory Show’s list of exhibitors before being reinstated three days later. Two days after that, the gallery’s Tehran location was removed, though it is included on signage at the stand in the Javits Center. Two other Iranian galleries are also taking part in the fair: Sarai, which has spaces in Tehran and London; and Dastan Gallery, which has venues in Tehran and Toronto. Both are listed online as having “multiple locations”.

‘The Seasick’ exhibition shares stories of Iranian refugees arriving by boat

Markela Panegyres spoke to artist Elaheh Mahdavi about her and her brother Arman’s recent exhibition The Seasick, at Gallery 1855 in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, which explores the plight of Iranian refugees who arrived in Australia by boat, and those they left behind.

Elaheh is a refugee and Arman is currently in Iran. The exhibition reflected their own experiences and those of other Iranian refugees living in the city.

‘The Calling Sea’ by Elaheh and Arman Mahdavi. Photo supplied by the artists. Courtesy Green Left.

by Markela Panegyres, Green Left

Can you tell me how you came up with the title, The Seasick?

The Seasick is also the title of the art collective established by my brother Arman and I. There is a tradition of people from different branches of arts, music and visual art to name their debut album or exhibition after their collective.

Between Myth and Modernity:

On Persian Stories, Identity, and the US-Iran Divide

Ryan Bani Tahmaseb Considers the Enduring Wisdom of Iranian Myths

Courtesy Lit Hub

by Ryan Bani Tahmaseb, Lit Hub

In one of the most tragic stories from Persian mythology, the legendary warrior Rostam unknowingly kills his own son, Sohrab, in battle. Sohrab had grown up estranged from his father, and when the two finally meet, it’s as enemies. Neither knows the other’s identity until it’s too late.

It’s a tragedy built on misrecognition and the failure to truly see the human being across the battlefield.

Earlier this summer, when tensions escalated once again between Iran and the United States, I began thinking about this particular myth. Both nations project strength while speaking in threats, each certain of its own moral superiority. Yet neither one truly sees the other: its history, its culture, its people.

My father, who was born in Tehran, moved to the U.S. with his parents and siblings when he was in elementary school—well before the so-called Iranian Revolution. His father, my grandfather, was an international businessman who leveraged his American friends’ connections.

“What They Had to Conceal”

In this interview, Iranian filmmaker Maryam Tafakory discusses how she abstracts and rewrites post-revolutionary Iranian cinema to reveal the queer bodies and untold stories forced into invisibility

راز دل Razeh-del. Courtesy of the artist and IDA

by Arta Barzanji, International Documentary Association (IDA)

Maryam Tafakory has emerged as one of the most original voices in nonfiction film in recent years, showcasing a body of work that is both consistent in quality and vision while evolving with each entry. Employing essayistic, collage-based, and experimental practices, Tafakory often draws on archival extracts from post-revolutionary Iranian cinema to reflect on not only the repressive political regime under which she came of age, but also the restrictive audiovisual regime that frequently denies the existence and expression of female and queer subjectivities. 

In Irani Bag (2021), a multitude of clips reveal purses and bags as conduits of the impossible touch between men and women on screen. Nazarbazi (2022) examines the play of gazes in Iranian cinema, juxtaposing fragments of stolen glances, recurring sounds, and verses of poetry. The result is an impressionistic collage that forgoes a linearly constructed argument conveyed through voiceover in favor of an accumulation of details, fragments, and suggestions.

Tafakory’s latest works, Mast-del (2023) and Razeh-del (2024), further complicate our relationship with pre-existing sounds and images by abstracting them and releasing latent, hitherto unexpressed affects, trapped within.

In a testament to the hybrid nature of her practice, Tafakory’s work has garnered nearly equal attention in the realms of art, film, and essayistic practices, as evident by the range of publications covering her work: Artforum, ArtReview, and Frieze​; Film Comment, Senses of Cinema, and Filmmaker; Filmexplorer, Non-Fiction, and Found Footage Magazine. Tafakory received the Film London Jarman Award in 2024, the 17th edition of the annual prize, for “showcasing an artistic voice that is both profound and essential.” This interview has been edited.