Shirin Neshat
Faith

1996
photography | c-print drawn on with ink
30 x 40 cm

In the works Bonding and Faith by Shirin Neshat we see a child’s hands, clasped within the hands of an adult woman. A text in Farsi has been written in delicate calligraphy on each of the photographs.

Shirin Neshat came to the attention of the art world with the series of photographs entitled Women of Allah, in which she herself posed wearing the traditional chador. By writing calligraphic texts from Persian love poetry on the photographs, across those parts of her body which, according to Islamic law may remain uncovered (i.e., hands, feet and face), she presents an image in which she gives, as it were, a voice to women. This mode, which became her trademark, is also applied in the two works in the College’s collection.

Bonding is a somewhat closed image, in it the child’s hands are held tightly, and the superimposed Farsi text translates as, ‘I die for you, but you live. You are my life and I am your life’. The second work, Faith, is more open, and radiates trust. The hands in the photograph are held as they are during Islamic prayer. “Reach out to the other to enable him to stand on his own two feet.”