Kasra Jalilipour’s Fragments of Truth and Fiction
Written by Tamaa Almashama, edited by Evar Hussayni
Iranian born, UK based Kasra Jalilipour, a multidisciplinary artist, writer and creator discusses with me their Iranian background along with London being their second home and how that influenced their art and use of speculative histories of homosexuality in Iran to explore their often “un-assumable background” and dig deeper to into different Iranian identities and present them to wider audiences through a queer lens on historical events. Their personal background and experiences were a place to draw inspiration from and dive into their Iranian heritage and look into different perspectives within history.
Although a lot of history is based on evidence, some of it can also be made based on assumptions as we cannot know the truth about histories we have not lived ourselves, this sits at the genesis of Kasra’s conceptual practice. A great example of this conceptual practice is Kasra’s Gut Feeling: Fragments of Truth in which the video essay has a lot of rhetorical questions aimed at Taj al-Sulatanah – a princess of the Qajar dynasty, known as a feminist, a woman’s rights activist and a memoirist – Kasra uses all the information given to them from research and attempts to draw a bigger picture to answer the questions that may have not necessarily been seen as important to cover at the time of these events whilst also addressing any potential misconceptions presented the misuse of information on the internet:
One of the reasons behind Kasra’s interest in speculative fiction; a genre of fiction that encompasses imagined elements surrounding specific events, departing from the reality which was stated in texts and looking into the subtexts and other given evidence, is that it can be made based on assumption, allowing more space to be creative. Prior to the 20th century, there appears to be no assumption on queerness, not necessarily because it didn’t exist, but arguably due to the conscious choice to ignore the existence of queerness by those in power of documenting histories. Kasra recalls being a teenager in 2007 and witnessing the president at the time, Ahmadinejad claim that “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country” at Columbia University (ref: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-ahmadinejad-scene-idUSN2428553420070924); and whilst they innocently believed what they heard at the time, this denial of existence was happening at the same time as executions of gay people in the country.
Kasra uses fragments and hints that can be found in history. This includes one of their inspirations, Taj al-Sultanah’s affairs with women as well as her husband, Ali Khan Qajar Zaher-al-Dowleh’s affairs with men – evidence of these affairs can be found in her diary that indicate that marriage can be more about status than love as their marriage was following the request of her father Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. As a daughter of the Shah, Taj al-Sultanah had the privilege of being able to write about her life and have it published, Kasra uses these stories to try and imagine what queerness would have looked like for the working-class who were a lot less surveyed; noting that middle-class people had more access as evident through the presence of a lot more queer history sources.
Whilst their work displays the historical presence of the queer community in history, Kasra states that the audience for their work may not necessarily be the LGBTQIA+ community located in Iran. Due to censorship enforced by the government in Iran to prevent/deny the existence of any unapproved reformists and counter-revolutionaries, or religious proponents of any kind, their work cannot be shown there publicly. Kasra is aware of their potential “outsider look” as someone who does not currently reside in Iran as a queer person. They point out that the Iranian LGBTQIA+ community has been a big part of the ongoing revolution against the Islamic Republic which escalated further following the tragic death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jina ‘Mahsa’ Amini as the country has been filled with demonstrations and demands for their human rights and freedom over themselves. Many queer couples have been photographing themselves in public squares and in front of monuments like the Freedom Tower in Tehran, sharing intimacy by kissing and holding hands. Although their faces are often blurred for safety reasons, these images which have never been seen before in such a public way, are integral to what this revolution means for the freedom of all Iranian people. They recently wrote about this political issue for gal-dem, interviewing trans Iranian activists: https://gal-dem.com/lgbtqi-people-forefront-iran-revolution/
They simply hope that the way they are making work adds to the history for the people from Iran for generations to come.
What started through stumbling across a Tumblr blog written piece about Taj al-Sultanah’s affair, has turned into the beautiful Gut Feelings work of art in which Taj al-Sultanah is the central figure. When asked about style choices in the video essay named Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth, Kasra explains how they felt that a letter was the best way to lay a story with all the information found; a one-sided conversation between themselves and Taj al-Sultanah, rather than attempting to relay the story directly to an audience of the research. It was a gradual process that revealed images of Taj al-Sultanah without a headscarf being the one on the cover of books, highlighting ideas of our existence on the internet after we die and how people create their own preferences of our looks to fit certain narratives. Some of Kasra’s creative choices were based on vocally violent, viral memes which were racially violent, with some videos which surf the internet with misinformation, for example showing images of 10 different women as one historical figure, and naming all of them as “undesirable” due to their physical appearances. The audience are also exposed to the digital violence of archiving as Kasra provides them with evidence of images of Maria Anna of Neuburg an 18th century queen consort of Spain, being mistakenly used on the internet under Taj al-Sultanah’s name who was born a century later. Kasra speculates if this is to satisfy the preference of historical icons to look a certain way. The 3D figure created for their piece Gut feelings: Fragments of Fiction, shows what Taj al-Sultanah looked like in her later days which can be seen as a rejection of the Western attempt of “beautifying” as it resists conforming to Eurocentric beauty standards by using Taj al-Sultanah’s authentic features. Kasra mentions how during the 19th century, women were preferred to be larger in body size, have mono brows and even drew on moustaches.
When asked about their current work and creative process, Kasra revealed that they are continuing their research on historic speculative fiction and attempting to make/remake queer histories as Gut Feelings is a lifelong project and the more they continue their research, the more they are fascinated and inspired to continue with their findings. They are also focusing on the use of technology to criticise or manipulate for their own purposes to look at what histories can look like in the future and how they are contributing to that. Lastly, they have recently been awarded a funding grant from Jerwood Arts for an upcoming solo exhibition.
You can view an online exhibition of Archival Affections here: https://www.archivalaffections.com/katayoun-jalilipour.html
Kasra’s website: kasrajalilipour.com
Kasra’s instagram: @kasrajalilipour
Writer : @t.almashama