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Eyes on Iran: JR + Hank Willis Thomas x Wide Awakes +Mahvash Mostal 

JR - Eyes On Iran
JR – Eyes On Iran

Artists Hank Willis Thomas x Wide Awakes, Mahvash Mostala and JR staged art activations over the weekend of December 3-4 in NYC calling for action in the “Eyes on Iran” campaign that has installed artworks by Iranian artists Sheida Soleimani, Aphrodite Désirée Navab, Z, Icy and Sot, Shirin Neshat, Sepideh Mehraban, and Shirin Towfiq at FDR Four Freedoms Park in NYC.

Timed for the U.N. initiative, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the installations are focused on the power of collective sight, with eyes facing the UN, signifying the world’s eyes on Iran and the UN in the lead-up to the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women vote on whether to revoke the Islamic Republic of Iran’s membership on December 14th.

‘Eyes in the Sky’ flying billboards featuring artworks by Thomas and Mostala circled around the skies of New York City on Saturday, December 3rd, symbolizing the eyes of the world on the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on the protesters in Iran.  JR’s activation featured more than 300 volunteers who stood alongside the portrait of sixteen-year-old Iranian activist Nika Shakarami who was killed in Iran in September during protests, the volunteers embodying her hair as they moved across the lawn.

“The upcoming vote on December 14th is critical in setting the tone on what happens next because the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women is a normative body. It exercises global leadership in setting the norms on what gender equality and women’s empowerment should be,”

says Gissou Nia, an Iranian-American human rights lawyer and spokesperson for the Women, Life, Freedom campaign.

So, it’s nothing short of outrageous to suggest that the Islamic Republic of Iran should have any part of a commission like that. They absolutely should not and we all have a responsibility to speak up and urge the Commission to do the right thing.

“The world’s eyes have been focused on the courage of Iranian citizens in their quest for freedom, in the face of increasingly grave danger,”

The Islamic Republic has censored them and attempted to blind the world to the potential of this movement. Eyes on Iran is our response to their call for a free Iran.

said human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam Mackay.

When we say that we must keep our “Eyes on Iran,” we mean that what is happening deserves not only our attention but our vision. In solidarity with the courageous Iranians who are risking their lives to express their human rights, many artists throughout the diaspora and beyond are bringing our vision to bear to ensure international audiences and institutions remain aware of what is happening in Iran, in their eyes and in their hearts, and feel moved to respond.

says artist Shirin Neshat.

For Freedoms is an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation. By wielding the power of art, we aim to deepen and expand our capacity to interrogate what is and imagine what could be. Together, we seek infinite expansion. www.forfreedoms.com

Vital Voices Global Partnership celebrates 25 years of directly investing in more than 20,000 women leaders across 184 countries and territories since its inception in 1997. Driven by the universal truth that women are the key to progress in their communities and nations cannot move forward without women in leadership positions, Vital Voices has provided early support for leaders who went on to become Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, U.S. Youth Poet Laureates, prime ministers, award-winning innovators, pioneering human rights defenders, and breakthrough social entrepreneurs. www.vitalvoices.org
Four Freedoms Park Conservancy (FFPC), founded in 2011, operates under a Friends Agreement with New York State Parks to produce and curate public programs at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park. The park, designed by the groundbreaking American modernist architect Louis Kahn, is among the greatest architectural masterpieces in New York City. By leveraging this spectacular architecture and the unique location of the park, FFPC strives to produce events, installations, commissions of public art, and partners with local organizations that, together, serve a singular purpose: igniting the conversation around the Four Freedoms and the legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org

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Eyes On Iran – Art activation faces The U.N. in New York City

Iranian artists Sheida Soleimani, Aphrodite Désirée Navab, Z, Icy and Sot, Shirin Neshat, Mahvash Mostala, Sepideh Mehraban, and Shirin Towfiq, alongside artists Hank Willis Thomas and JR, activate New York’s FDR Four Freedoms State Park with a provocative multi-day and multi-media art installation facing the United Nations entitled Eyes on Iran, November 28th, 2022 – January 1st, 2023.

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