This performance was enacted by the artist in Tehran after the brutal government crackdown on protesters in 2011. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the revolutionary party has normalized state violence, using practices such as public executions as spectacles for the masses—a method of deeply embedding discipline within the collective consciousness.
In response to this culture of violence, the artist sought to push her personal psychological boundaries by placing herself in a situation that was both intensely uncomfortable and disorienting. By subjecting herself to an experience of vulnerability, the artist aimed to explore her own capacity to engage in acts of violence and to challenge the fixed assumptions of what one is capable of in extreme circumstances. This work becomes a form of self-examination, questioning the boundaries of morality, self-preservation, and the human propensity for cruelty in the face of power structures.
Stepping into a zone of full vulnerability, the artist’s body becomes a space of indiscernibility—a liminal zone where the distinction between subject and object, human and animal, becomes blurred. This radical shift challenges viewers to confront their own relationship to violence, power, and its dehumanizing effects.
2012
Video documentation of performance, colour/sound 6 min, continuous loop