Muslim student who says she feels ‘dehumanized’ by art showing veiled women showing off underwear

A Muslim student in Minnesota has organized a petition against an exhibition of an Iranian-American artist showing Muslim women in revealing underwear after feeling ‘dehumanized’ and has demanded the school remove the pieces.

Ikran Noor, a third-year student at Macalester College in St. Paul, has called on her fellow students to “stand in solidarity” with her in protest of the display of Taravat Talepasand at the school. She has posted several fliers around the school and at the door of the exhibition asking students not to attend the gallery tour and to sign her petition, which has around 80 signatures.

The Iranian-American artist, who claims her work was censored by a Minnesota university, has demanded that the school remove the petition calling for her most racist pieces to be removed from the exhibition after Noor called the work “dehumanizing.” “.

Talepasand’s exhibition at Macalester College was temporarily blacked out after Noor and several other Muslim students at the school expressed their anger.

The 43-year-old artist’s exhibition featured drawings of women in niqabs and high heels lifting their robes to reveal their undergarments, as well as porcelain sculptures of similar women with their breasts exposed.

Ikran Noor (pictured) has called for the racy pieces to be removed from the gallery. She was also the student who started the petition, which has around 80 signatures.

Since its reopening on February 6, the school has installed frosted glass and posted an activation warning on the exhibit door. A flyer made by students, asking others not to attend the show, also appeared at the door.

The artist has called it ‘violation’ and ‘censorship’ of her work. “I think it would be reasonable to call for the removal of the frosted decals and the petition,” she said.

Since its reopening on February 6, the school has installed frosted glass and posted an activation warning on the exhibit door. A flyer made by students, asking others not to attend the show, also appeared at the door, which the artist called a “violation” and “censorship” of her work.

“I think it would be reasonable to demand that the frosted decals and the petition be removed,” he said. Sahan Diary.

He also said that the school did not tell him that they had put black curtains around his work and that it created a “whole different level of censorship.” He also requested that none of his work be removed and that the consent note be clearly visible on closed gallery doors.

“During the opening on Friday, January 27, I spoke to the president who supported my exhibition and stated that they would never censor my work as it provides a critical dialogue on self-expression and solidarity with women in and from Iran,” said the artist. . work on a document shared with DailyMail.com.

Prior to frosted glass, the school had installed black curtains around their work, causing viewers to have to manually move the partition to view the work. He later opted for frosted glass to allow the artwork to be unobstructed from inside the gallery.

Macalester put up the frosted glass to prevent students from inadvertently viewing artwork that contains “imagery of sexuality and violence that may be upsetting or unacceptable to some viewers.”

While the gallery was temporarily closed, it was covered by black curtains. The artwork inside had also been covered up.

The 43-year-old artist’s exhibition featured drawings of women in niqabs and high heels lifting their robes to reveal their undergarments, as well as porcelain sculptures of similar women with their breasts exposed.

“Please view the exhibit with caution,” the trigger warning on the door read.

At the very door, the student flyer read: ‘Support us in solidarity… Do not attend, visit or participate in this exhibition.’

“My artwork is unapologetic,” Talepasand, who was born in Oregon in 1979 to Iranian parents, the year Iran’s Islamic Revolution began, told the Suhan Journal. “I am doing work that is finding the similarities, not just the differences, between the East and the West and how, in many ways, they are parallel.

‘Sometimes it can be very political. Sometimes it can be very controversial. But I strongly believe that art can promote these conversations,” he continued.

The artist said her work is meant to be a “voice and share awareness of what’s happening in Iran, but not just in Iran, but what’s happening here in America.”

‘We’re still fighting for female autonomy, right? And it’s very much a conversation that’s happening in many other countries.’

During opening night, the artist, who also works as an assistant professor of art practice at Portland State University, spoke to students about their art and told them it was well turned out.

Student Ikran Noor said she felt the job (pictured) was ‘degrading’ and sexualized Muslim women.

A neon sign reading “Woman, Life, Freedom” was a nod to recent nationwide protests in Iran. Noor made it clear that she supported Iranian women, but she felt objectified by her artwork because of the small community of Muslim students at the school.

“It was a great night of celebration,” he told the outlet. “I had women from Morocco, Egypt, Iranians, who were really there to support my work.”

However, a petition was still started by Noor, a third-year student, who claimed on her social media on February 3 that Talepasand’s work has ’caused harm to many students’ due to its ‘objectification ways’.

“This is NOT a question of supporting Iranian women because that is a fact. This is a critique of the exhibition that portrays Muslim women wearing hijabs in an extremely demeaning and dehumanizing way,” Noor wrote. She went on to say that the ‘objectification [and] fetishization’ of Muslim women has led to an ‘increase in sexual assaults’ against them.

‘This art exhibition perpetuates that same cycle of violence. It’s DISGUSTING, DEHUMANIZING and DEGRADING,’ he wrote on February 3.

Despite her reaction to the exhibit, Noor does not want to remove the exhibit entirely, but rather “those that particularly show hijabi and niqabi women.”

“I think they should be left out,” he told the Sahan Journal. The student said the exhibit felt “a bit directed because there aren’t many Muslim students here.”

“In a predominantly white institution, when I look at who’s going to school, who’s going into this exhibit, without understanding or nuance, then it’s pretty damaging.”

He claimed to have seen non-Muslim students leave the gallery showing laughter.

Noor wasn’t the only student to take offense to the artwork, as sophomore and track star Kalid Ali said he didn’t agree with it either.

“Maybe another student is fine as long as he has a warning, but as someone who grew up respecting women and the hijab, I was not okay with that,” he told the Sahan Journal.

Noor said she felt singled out as one of the few women wearing hijabi on campus and worried how other students would start to see her because of the artwork.

When Noor and others met with school officials, where she claimed many cried, she said she felt the school was not listening to them.

“As a Muslim student, I think I felt a kind of betrayal,” Ali agreed. “I think they took into account different perspectives, points of view from different people, and decided that the best way is to keep the exhibit and the content within the exhibits.”

The email sent to the students by Lisa Anderson-Levy and Alina Wong, seen by DailyMail.com, acknowledged the “disrespect, contempt and invisibility” experienced by some students and apologized for not taking the “necessary steps to demonstrate cultural sensitivity and awareness of the potential impact of art.’

The artwork is still on display at the school (pictured)

Despite the school’s positive step, Noor still questioned why an activation warning and email hadn’t been offered before the exhibit’s debut.

“It’s really frustrating and emotionally draining for Muslim students, or BIPOC students, to have to educate everyone else about what’s going on,” Noor told the Suhan Journal.

“It doesn’t look like the school administration is going to do anything anyway, just to show the students that there are other people who support them.”

So far around 80 students have signed Noor’s petition and the student argued that ‘criticizing art is not silencing the artist’.

“I should be able to say that as a Muslim woman on this campus who wears the hijab, this is pretty damaging to me. And this is quite harmful for other women as well,” she told Suhan Journal. ‘It’s not like I’m saying, no one should see the art, but take it somewhere else.

As an institution, you have a right to say that we don’t want to be associated with this kind of thing.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Noor for comment.