THE HoMo-Graphs is a series of psychological self-portraits exploring shame, restraint, emotion, and misogyny. Themes I can identify with. My father's banter with his locker room pals at Queen's Club in West London in the 1980s, included words such as: lay, bang and screw, to describe a previous night's conquest with a woman. When Iranian boys of my age group, also used these words, I simply could not understand. My uneasy laugh as a response hasn't left me.
Turning humour into irreverence, I am engaging in a double-edged performance for the camera where I wish the viewer to think about the relationship between descriptive words and emotions. When certain words are associated with women, etymology and its changing cultural interpretations challenge existing history. THE HoMo-Graphs raises questions about how women have been perceived as derisory in the name of humour, absorbed these derogatory terms of language and employed humour as a defence mechanism.
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