Scented Rooms

Shauheen Daneshfar

The exposition Scented Rooms aims to be a form of resistance that finds itself in poetry and politics, poetic imagery, re-thinking censored archives, existential reflections on photography and cinema, and dance. At the very core of the research is an important historic icon in Iran; The country's oldest theater which was burnt down by extremists during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, closed forever and has decayed over time. The burning of this theater, along with many others, was the starting point for imposing restrictions on art and culture. The research departs contextually from the efforts of the Islamic government to control civil society. It is a reaction to a history of imposing a specific language discourse and discarding elements that represent a non-religious view, visual changes in the urban space and limiting access to specific types of information that refer to citizens’ collective memory. Giving agency to this theater, the research aims to revive the collective and public memory of a society, being the voice of those that have been silenced for a long time.

Perhaps at first the story of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom comes across as being about the gaze of a man upon a naked woman. But what if we consider Lady Godiva’s act of taking to the street naked as one of rebellion against her husband, who was the supposed “master”. The Peeping Tom's gaze also turns into a political action in its turn. He looks at something he shouldn't be looking at.

Here I am now, inside this forbidden site, where I am not supposed to be. I am looking at something I am not supposed to look at.

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