I'm an artist, I'm not an activist.

I’m really interested in social justice, and if an artist has a certain power of being heard and voicing something important, it’s right to do it. It could still be done in such a way that it’s not aggressive or overly didactic. I’m trying to find that form.

Art is no crime. It’s every artist’s responsibility to make art that is meaningful.

I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart – the truth – of the culture.

Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance.

Part of me has always resisted the Western clichéd image of Muslim women, depicting them as nothing more than silent victims. My art, without denying repression, is a testimony to unspoken female power and the continuing protest in Islamic culture.

I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart - the truth - of the culture.

Every Iranian artist, in one form or another, is political. Politics have defined our lives.

Beautiful woman wrapped in chadors, with huge machine guns in their hands. Brilliant, shocking, amazingly contradictory images. They compelled me to deeply investigate these ideas.

In this Western world that we have, culture risks being [only] a form of entertainment.