"The challenges women face regarding their bodies and identity are shaped by cultural and social pressures. Women’s bodies, in particular, have become politically contested spaces within feminist thought.

I am from Iran, where the hijab is mandatory and women lack the freedom to choose their attire in public. Since moving to the UK, where social norms are different, my awareness of these restrictions has been magnified.

This self‑portrait, from the Brutal Resilience series, explores concepts of identity, femininity, and resistance. In this image, I face the camera, but my hair, tied in a ponytail, obscures my face. Women’s hair is a potent symbol of repression in my homeland, and by binding it across my face, I evoke a sense of suffocation.

The concrete environment, with its harsh textures, symbolizes entrapment, challenging the forces of control and subjugation. In this way, I whisper my resistance."