HAIR AND HATRED

On the 22nd of September 2022, Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by Iran’s morality police because a loose tendril of hair escaped her hijab. As protestors took to the streets across Iran, security forces came down heavily on them - resulting in over 5000 deaths and over 19000 arrests. Governments around the world issued statement after statement condemning this horrific repression but India chose to remain silent as brutality and injustice rained down on the thousands of women at the mercy of their cruel regime.

Objective: This campaign aims to raise a voice of support to the women of Iran by bringing their plight close to home and heart, awakening Indian women to the truth that Iran's issue is not Iran's alone, but every woman’s issue.

The Indian government has always supported Iran at the UN. This complicated the response to the brutality that Iranian women were facing in their homeland. As the women of Iran sent out a plea to the democracies of the world for support, they received an outpouring of the same from around the globe. Which made the deafening sound of India’s indifference stand out even more. Politicians tight lipped and the press, gagged - India chose to remain silent as brutality and injustice rained down on the thousands of women at the mercy of their cruel regime.

STIR-RING UP A HORNET’S NEST

While politicians from the world's largest democracy said nothing and people of India treated it as “internal matters of another country”. Stir, a disruptive magazine wanted to wake up the collective consciousness of a nation.

A provocative photo essay was published showcasing the ‘Every Woman’ – stripped to the bone, stripped of geography, ethnicity, and religion, bound by her own hair, subjugated, and controlled by the patriarchy.

We gave Mahsa Amini’s plight universal appeal because the truth is that it wasn’t just Iran’s story, but the story of every woman.

POETRY IN FORM

The objective was to pictorially capture the ‘Every Woman’ – delayered of her ethnicity, nationality, and religion, so that the Indian woman can see herself and what she has gone through, in our subject.

To truly capture this subjugation viscerally, and draw attention to the repression in Iran, a woman covered in a burqa made of her own hair would be the metaphor for the shackles that bind every woman and the existential havoc such repression wreaks on her spirit. Arresting and thought provoking, we wanted the subject to be visible, so that she isn’t just looking at you but straight through you – her plight, your plight. Her cause, your cause. Visually, we carried the idea forward to show the ways in which hair has been weaponized by patriarchy to subjugate a woman.

IN SILENCE WE FOUND OUR VOICE

The conversation around our art installation got the issue more coverage in India than the issue itself, that too with minimal spends.

• We became the 1st ad campaign to be invited to the India Art Fair.

• We became the most talked about piece at India’s most covered art exhibition.

• Print Magazine called it one of the top 2 pieces of work at the Art Fair.

• We made news across national media, with leading dailies like The Hindu, TOI, Telegraph

covering it, reaching over 100 million readers.

• The French ambassador invited us to bring the exhibition to France.

• Shombi Sharp, the UN head of India, invited us to bring the exhibition to the United Nations.

Untangling the Politics of Hair is a step in empowering the world's women to untie their burden, embrace their liberty, and be free.