Ghorbankarimi, Maryam (2026) The Fury and the Translocal Feminist Aesthetic of Shirin Neshat. In: BAFTSS Annual Conference 2026, 2026-04-15 - 2026-04-17, Highcliff Marriott Hotel.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This paper examines The Fury (2023), one of Shirin Neshat’s latest video installation, as a powerful articulation of feminist resistance forged at the intersection of Iranian and American social realities. Revisiting the intense symbolism of Women of Allah (1993–1997) while shifting from the expansive, allegorical landscapes of Women Without Men (2009) to the intimate, urban spaces of her current environment, the work explores power, marginalisation, and resilience, reflecting Neshat’s dual identity as an Iranian artist in diaspora. Set between imagined Iranian interiors and the constrained architecture of Brooklyn’s immigrant neighbourhoods, The Fury foregrounds the lived experience of women caught within overlapping structures of control. Through veiling, bodily gesture, and spatial choreography, the work moves beyond national frameworks to expose shared conditions of subjugation and resistance. Rather than posing East and West as oppositional, Neshat explores their entanglement, using her diasporic position to interrogate the violence of both. In doing so, The Fury offers a translocal feminist aesthetic grounded in affect, embodiment, and rupture. This paper argues that Neshat’s work contributes a critical perspective to Iranian women’s cinema by staging solidarity not through sameness, but through a deep recognition of parallel struggles across shifting political geographies.