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March 14, 2011
They were forbidden to speak to each other, so the women in Iran’s Evin prison used Morse code to communicate.
They knocked on walls and held mirrors through the barred windows to catch the sun and send messages of solidarity to their imprisoned sisters.
Anahita Rahmani, 53, was one of those women. Rahmani was imprisoned for eight years because of political activity in 1982. Her husband died in prison while she was behind bars.
Now a social work student in Toronto, Rahmani has recreated that scene in an art piece as part of a project titled Words, Colour, Movement, involving two dozen people from Iran and Turkey who were political prisoners.
An exhibit of their work titled, Lines of Resistance: Prison Art from the Middle East, runs at Beit Zatoun Gallery, 612 Markham St., from April 9 to 17.
In Rahmani’s piece sculpted out of Plasticine, dark figures line up before firing squads and for floggings. In another work, a green plant can be seen sprouting from a pistachio nut that has been nurtured by a prisoner. Within the darkness there is hope, explains Rahmani, who arrived in Canada eight years ago.
Using Morse code was an act of defiance, Rahmani says. “We had to obey the rules of the prison,” she says, adding they were not allowed to speak. “But we found a way to communicate.”
The project was created by Shahrzad Mojab, 55, a professor of women’s studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, as part of her research into the effect of violence and war on women and learning. Mojab started using art — from dance and song to painting — four years ago to help women deal with the trauma of prison.
Mojab, who fled Iran in 1986 with her husband and small child, wanted to give political prisoners an outlet to express their feelings when they lack the vocabulary or find it too painful to talk about.
“Another medium can represent the violence. It’s an expression of pain and suffering but also of resistance,” says Mojab, of the program which has been expanded to include the husbands and fathers of the participants. .
Ramin Jahanbegloo, was imprisoned in 2006 after returning to Iran from Canada. He endured 125 days of solitary confinement and during that time was subjected to psychological torture. His wife, Azin Moalej, struggling with a new baby and terrified of her husband’s fate, who suffered more.
“She was the one most affected,” says Jahanbegloo, pointing to his wife’s multimedia pieces that show his imprisonment, their adjustment to life in Canada and their hopes for the future. Hands and mirrors represent destiny in the work. Moalej used a shattered mirror for today but the future has an intact mirror surrounded by bright colours.
“Art expresses cruelty but it also heals it,” says Jahanbegloo, a political science professor at University of Toronto.
Mojab, whose research includes anti-racism, women’s rights and the effects of violence, began the program five years ago to bring former political prisoners together to record their experiences and help them get support from others in their situation. Art became a natural way for the women to express themselves and a drama and dance was performed in June 2010.
The women meet twice a month, share a meal, create their art works and learn English.
Nuriye Kilinc, 51, an art teacher who came to Canada from Turkey in 2002, was jailed numerous times for participating in political demonstrations. She collaborated on the group’s poster, which shows a young woman leading a protest.
She also painted a watercolour of four Kurdish children under arrest for throwing stones. That happened a decade ago and she keeps their memory alive through the painting.
In almost all of the art, despite the suffering there is hope.
The Kurds are a persecuted group in Turkey, says Serpil Odabasi, 35, setting up the story of her painting. The Kurdish refugee, who arrived in Toronto four months ago, says she was frequently arrested and tortured by being choked. In one of her paintings, a pair of blood spattered feet walk past a dove’s feather.
“The dove’s feather is hope for peace,” says Odabasi, who was also an art teacher. Another picture is of a woman knitting a sweater onto her body. Her head is a giant ball of yarn, “She is creating herself again, like a new person,” says Odabasi.
Truck driver Jamshid Kobolian Baghani, 59, who spent six years in prison in Iran, incorporates a white horse in many of his pieces. It is a symbol of resistance.
“Let us not forget, there is always hope.”
BY TRISH CRAWFORD
This story is available online at thestar.com.