The story I wanted to share with you today is my challenge as an Iranian artist, as an Iranian woman artist, as an Iranian woman artist living in exile. Well, it has its pluses and minuses. On the dark side, politics doesn't seem to escape people like me. Every Iranian artist, in one form or another, is political. Politics have defined our lives. If you're living in Iran, you're facing censorship, harassment, arrest, torture -- at times, execution. If you're living outside like me, you're faced with life in exile -- the pain of the longing and the separation from your loved ones and your family. Therefore, we don't find the moral, emotional, psychological and political space to distance ourselves from the reality of social responsibility.
今天我要和大家分享的故事 是我作为一名伊朗艺术家要面对的挑战, 作为一名伊朗女性艺术家, 作为一名流亡故土的 伊朗女性艺术家。 这有优缺点。 黑暗的一面是, 政治好似与我们形影不离。 每位伊朗艺术家,各种艺术形式 都有关政治。 政治定义了我们。 假若你生活在伊朗, 你会面对审查,骚扰, 逮捕,酷刑-- 有时是处决。 假若你像我一样生活在异地, 你得面对流亡的生活-- 渴望思乡的痛苦 和你最爱的人们 和你家人的分离之苦。 因此,我们不会找到 道德上的,情感上的, 心理上的和政治上的空间 使我们自身逃脱 这种社会责任的现实。
Oddly enough, an artist such as myself finds herself also in the position of being the voice, the speaker of my people, even if I have, indeed, no access to my own country. Also, people like myself, we're fighting two battles on different grounds. We're being critical of the West, the perception of the West about our identity -- about the image that is constructed about us, about our women, about our politics, about our religion. We are there to take pride and insist on respect. And at the same time, we're fighting another battle. That is our regime, our government -- our atrocious government, [that] has done every crime in order to stay in power. Our artists are at risk. We are in a position of danger. We pose a threat to the order of the government.
奇怪的是, 像我一样的一位艺术家 同时常能找到她自身的本职,成为这种声音的代言, 代言我同胞们成为演讲人, 虽然我其实 没有机会重返故土。 另外,像我一样的人们, 我们在各地抗争着两场战斗。 我们对西方不满, 不满于西方 关于我们身份认同的观点-- 关于我们自身形象的观点, 关于我们女性,我们政治, 和我们宗教的观点。 我们对这些引以自豪 坚持得到尊重。 同时, 我们在抗争另一场战斗。 那就是我们的政权, 我们的政府-- 我们残暴的政府, 所做的每一件罪行 是为了保有政权。 我们艺术家是有风险的。 我们身处危险之中。 我们对政府的统治 构成威胁。
But ironically, this situation has empowered all of us, because we are considered, as artists, central to the cultural, political, social discourse in Iran. We are there to inspire, to provoke, to mobilize, to bring hope to our people. We are the reporters of our people, and are communicators to the outside world. Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance. I envy sometimes the artists of the West for their freedom of expression. For the fact that they can distance themselves from the question of politics. From the fact that they are only serving one audience, mainly the Western culture. But also, I worry about the West, because often in this country, in this Western world that we have, culture risks being a form of entertainment. Our people depend on our artists, and culture is beyond communication.
但具有讽刺意味的是, 这种困境 给予所有人一种动力, 因为作为艺术家,我们被认为 是代言伊朗文化上的,政治上的, 社会上的中心话语。 我们在那儿激励着,唤醒着, 动员着, 并把希望带给我们的同胞。 我们是我们同胞的记录人, 也是与 外界世界联系的沟通者。 艺术是我们的武器。 文化是一种抵抗形式。 有时我嫉妒西方的艺术家 因为他们有自由的言论-- 因为他们可以远离 政治问题的事实-- 事实上他们仅仅服务于一类观众, 主要是西方文化。 但我也对西方文化感到焦虑, 因为常常在这个国家, 在这个西方世界,我们所有 文化有成为一种单纯的娱乐的危险。 我们的同胞依靠我们这些艺术家, 文化是超越语言的。
My journey as an artist started from a very, very personal place. I did not start to make social commentary about my country. The first one that you see in front of you is actually when I first returned to Iran after being separated for a good 12 years. It was after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. While I was absent from Iran, the Islamic Revolution had descended on Iran and had entirely transformed the country from Persian to the Islamic culture. I came mainly to be reunited with my family and to reconnect in a way that I found my place in the society. But instead, I found a country that was totally ideological and that I didn't recognize anymore. More so, I became very interested, as I was facing my own personal dilemmas and questions, I became immersed in the study of the Islamic Revolution -- how, indeed, it had incredibly transformed the lives of Iranian women. I found the subject of Iranian women immensely interesting, in the way the women of Iran, historically, seemed to embody the political transformation. So in a way, by studying a woman, you can read the structure and the ideology of the country.
我作为一名艺术家的旅程 始于一个非常,非常个人化的起点。 我没一开始 针对我的国家 发表社会评论。 呈现在大家面前所看到的第一幅图 实际上是在我第一次重返伊朗 那是在被分离整整12年后。 这是在1979年 的伊斯兰革命之后。 当我不在伊朗时, 伊斯兰革命席卷着伊朗 把整个国家 从波斯文化完全转变为伊斯兰文化。 我回去主要是为了和我的家庭团聚 重新融入社会 试图发现我在这社会中的定位。 与此相反,我发现一个 完全意识形态 我都不敢认的国家。 尤其如此,我就变得非常感兴趣, 因为我要面对 我自身个人的困境和问题, 我投入到 伊斯兰革命的研究中-- 的确, 它也不可思议的转变了 伊朗女性的生活。 我发现伊朗女性的话题 非常有趣, 在历史上,伊朗女性 似乎代表了政治改革。 所以在某种程度上,研究一位女性, 你能阅读到这个国家的结构和意识形态。
So I made a group of work that at once faced my own personal questions in life, and yet it brought my work into a larger discourse -- the subject of martyrdom, the question of those who willingly stand in that intersection of love of God, faith, but violence and crime and cruelty. For me, this became incredibly important. And yet, I had an unusual position toward this. I was an outsider who had come back to Iran to find my place, but I was not in a position to be critical of the government or the ideology of the Islamic Revolution. This changed slowly as I found my voice and I discovered things that I didn't know I would discover. So my art became slightly more critical. My knife became a little sharper. And I fell into a life in exile. I am a nomadic artist. I work in Morocco, in Turkey, in Mexico. I go everywhere to make believe it's Iran.
所以我创造了一组艺术 让我立刻直面我自己一生中的个人问题, 这创作还把我的工作引向了一个较大的谈话-- 殉身的话题, 有关那些心甘情愿地站在 上帝之爱,信仰 和残酷,暴力和犯罪的十字路口的女性话题。 对我而言,这变得异常重要。 对此,我还有一个异常的角色。 我是一个局外人 我回到伊朗找寻我所处位置, 但我不是站在一个位置 要对政府 或者伊斯兰革命的意识形态发表不满。 这种变化是慢慢发生的 正如我发展我的观点 我发现 我没想到会发现的一些事。 所以我的艺术变得更具评论性了。 我的艺术变得有点尖锐。 j我陷入到一种流亡的生活。 我是一名流浪艺术家。 我在摩洛哥,土耳其,墨西哥工作过。 我所去任何地方使我相信这是伊朗。
Now I am making films. Last year, I finished a film called "Women Without Men." "Women Without Men" returns to history, but another part of our Iranian history. It goes to 1953 when American CIA exercised a coup and removed a democratically elected leader, Dr. Mossadegh. The book is written by an Iranian woman, Shahrnush Parsipur. It's a magical realist novel. This book is banned, and she spent five years in prison. My obsession with this book, and the reason I made this into a film, is because it at once was addressing the question of being a female -- traditionally, historically in Iran -- and the question of four women who are all looking for an idea of change, freedom and democracy -- while the country of Iran, equally, as if another character, also struggled for an idea of freedom and democracy and independence from the foreign interventions.
现在我制作电影。 去年,我完成了一部 叫“没有男人的女人”的电影。 “没有男人的女人”追溯历史, 但是另一部分伊朗历史。 它追溯到1953年 当美国中央情报局发动一次政变 撤下了一位民选领导人 摩萨德博士。 这本书由一位伊朗女性写成 Shahrnush Parsipur。 这是一部魔幻现实主义小说。 这本书遭禁, 她在狱中待了5年。 我对这书情有独钟, 我把这本书制成一部电影的原因 是因为它正好就代言了 作为一名女性的问题-- 在伊朗的传统上,历史上-- 4位女性的问题 她们都寻求一个 变革,自由和民主的想法-- 同样地,同时伊朗作为国家好比是另一个角色, 也在为一个 自由,民主 脱离外国干预的独立的想法而抗争着。
I made this film because I felt it's important for it to speak to the Westerners about our history as a country. That all of you seem to remember Iran after the Islamic Revolution. That Iran was once a secular society, and we had democracy, and this democracy was stolen from us by the American government, by the British government. This film also speaks to the Iranian people in asking them to return to their history and look at themselves before they were so Islamicized -- in the way we looked, in the way we played music, in the way we had intellectual life. And most of all, in the way that we fought for democracy. These are some of the shots actually from my film. These are some of the images of the coup. And we made this film in Casablanca, recreating all the shots.
我制作这部电影 因为我感到 用它来对西方人 讲讲我们做为一个国家的历史的重要性。 因为西方所有人似乎只记得 发动伊斯兰革命之后的伊朗。 因为伊朗曾是一个世俗社会, 我们曾有民主, 这种民主 被美国政府, 被英国政府从我们的手中夺去。 这部电影也告诉伊朗人民 让他们重回到他们的历史中 看看在他们变得如此伊斯兰化之前的他们自身-- 我们是如何看待自身的,我们所表达的音乐, 我们所拥有的精神生活。 尤其是, 我们为争取民主进行的斗争。 这实际上是我电影中的一些镜头场景。 这是一些政变的照片。 我们在卡萨布兰卡拍摄这部电影, 重新创建所有的镜头场景。
This film tried to find a balance between telling a political story, but also a feminine story. Being a visual artist, indeed, I am foremost interested to make art -- to make art that transcends politics, religion, the question of feminism, and become an important, timeless, universal work of art. The challenge I have is how to do that. How to tell a political story but an allegorical story. How to move you with your emotions, but also make your mind work. These are some of the images and the characters of the film. Now comes the green movement -- the summer of 2009, as my film is released -- the uprising begins in the streets of Tehran.
这部电影试图找到一个平衡 在讲述一个政治事件 但也是一个女性故事。 作为一名视觉艺术家,的确, 我对创作艺术最感兴趣-- 那些超越了 政治,宗教, 女权主义的问题的创作艺术, 它变成了一个重要的,永恒的 全球性的艺术作品。 我所遇到的挑战 就是怎样做到这点-- 怎样通过一个寓言故事来讲述一个政治事件-- 怎样能动之以情地打动大家, 但又让大家对此深入思考。 这是一些图像 和电影里的角色。 现在发生了绿色运动-- 在2009年的夏天, 当我的电影发行-- 起义遍布德黑兰的街头巷角。
What is unbelievably ironic is the period that we tried to depict in the film, the cry for democracy and social justice, repeats itself now again in Tehran. The green movement significantly inspired the world. It brought a lot of attention to all those Iranians who stand for basic human rights and struggle for democracy. What was most significant for me was, once again, the presence of the women. They're absolutely inspirational for me. If in the Islamic Revolution, the images of the woman portrayed were submissive and didn't have a voice, now we saw a new idea of feminism in the streets of Tehran -- women who were educated, forward thinking, non-traditional, sexually open, fearless and seriously feminist. These women and those young men united Iranians across the world, inside and outside.
多么令人难以置信的讽刺 是我试图在电影中描述的那段时期, 争取民主 和社会公正的呐喊, 现在重新席卷而来 再一次在德黑兰上演。 绿色运动 意义深远地激励了整个世界。 许多的目光都注视到所有这些伊朗人民 他们为基本人权而奋起抗争 为民主而斗争。 对我最意义重大的 是,又一次, 女性的出现。 她们对我来说绝对是鼓舞人心的。 假若在伊斯兰革命, 女性的刻画形象 是顺从的 没有自身代言, 现在我们看到了女权主义的一个新观点 遍布德黑兰的大街小巷-- 女性们受过教育, 超前思维,非传统, 性开放,无所畏惧 也是严肃的女权主义者。 这些女性和这些年轻男性 联合 跨越全球的,里应外合的伊朗人。
I then discovered why I take so much inspiration from Iranian women. That, under all circumstances, they have pushed the boundary. They have confronted the authority. They have broken every rule in the smallest and the biggest way. And once again, they proved themselves. I stand here to say that Iranian women have found a new voice, and their voice is giving me my voice. And it's a great honor to be an Iranian woman and an Iranian artist, even if I have to operate in the West only for now.
然后我发现 之所以我深受这些伊朗女性 如此之多的鼓舞。 因为,无论如何, 她们已经冲破了边界。 她们已经直面面对权威。 她们打破了所有 大大小小的规矩。 再一次地,她们证明了她们自身。 我在这儿想说 伊朗女性已经有了一种新的代言, 她们的声音给予了我自己的声音。 作为一位伊朗女性 和一位伊朗艺术家是极大的荣誉, 即使我只是在现在不得不在西方来展示我的艺术。
Thank you so much.
十分感谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)