In recent weeks, Iran has clamped down on cultural institutions, including officially revoking the license of 27-year old publishing house Cheshmeh Publications, and shutting down the country’s independently-run House of Cinema. Here is a look at Iran’s latest restrictions on culture from Small Media, a London-based organisation that develops technology to promote the flow of information in closed societies. [View the story "Cultural Censorship in Iran - Forced Closure of Major Cultural Establishments" on Storify]

Natalie Abbassi is an Iranian-American artist based in North Carolina. In a series of self-portraits entitled “In conflict and consent”, Abbassi explores the relationship between her two different identities: This project is a series of self portraits exploring who I am, both as an American and as an Iranian, through photographs. It has always been a struggle for me to explain myself, who I truly am, and how I should or shouldn’t act in given situations. I feel that maybe these photographs will answer some questions. Questions people might have, or even questions I have for myself as a person who has lived with two cultures her whole life. Sometimes I feel confused, proud, and sometimes even awkward about how [...]

Little Black Fish: Last week, a video entitled Runway In Subway caught my eye. Filmed on the Tehran Metro, it shows a young girl named Shirin Abedinirad  boldly entering a train carriage and asking passengers for their rubbish, in order to pin it to her dress. She says: “Hello, I’m Shirin, a fashion student. I’m hoping for your collaboration. It’s the first time we’re doing this. You could call it ‘fashion design on the metro’.  If you have any rubbish, I will pin it on my dress.” In the clip, Abedinirad and friends — one filming, another collecting items and carrying a box of safety pins — meet people and their discarded items on the train. A woman is heard [...]

Religious women will be stationed outside of Tehran’s underground stations in an effort to enlighten and guide female commuters back on the straight and narrow path. The Chief of Operations of Tehran’s Metro system Ali Mohammad Gholiha, told Mehr News that 50 women will be placed at various underground locations “to enable passengers to ask questions or discuss any religious problems they may have.” A similar effort was launched for men during Ramadan this year, with 80 seminary students stationed at 30 stops, and they even tried the initiative in one female carriage. The missionaries work directly in the carriages, and Mehr News confronted Gholiha about the reported instances of men trespassing onto the women-only carriages without penalty.  His reply [...]

With the strict supposedly “moral” codes imposed on Iranian society with increasing conservatism in recent times, this latest directive – banning ‘love triangles’ and ‘half naked men’ —  issued to television programme directors this week, strikes me to be of  little significance. It was more than 10 years ago that I reported in the Touch issue of  COLORS magazine that even if married in the story, couples were not allowed to be filmed touching in any way. This distortion of every day living is pursued in all depictions of life in television and film and is known to be a distortion and deliberate by those imposing it. This was transparent in this latest ordinance because the wording was such: “The [...]