Abstract

This thesis describes an arts-based research project that includes a visual analysis of my video installations and other video art that deals with social and political issues of women in Iran. For this research I looked at cinema as a medium with the power to create a national identity and a national image and I investigated the reasons behind the western misconceptions about the representation of women in Iranian films. I also focused on the value of metaphor as a tool for visual research and I did a visual analysis of metaphors that Shirin Neshat, an Iranian video artist, and I used in our videos. This project explores a theoretical basis for artistic practice, positions it within the discourse of research and exemplifies one way that visual arts practice can be theorized as research. This thesis consists of an in depth literature review on the topics of representation of gender and politics of Islam in Iranian cinema, metaphors and visual research; art production (for this part of the research I made my two videos, Unveiling and Dance ); and data analysis/art based research