A remarkable look at Iran through the lenses of 23 women photographers, at a moment in history when Iranian women are fighting for their rights with courage and determination. Breathing Space showcases the work of twenty-three women photographers from Iran and their diverse approaches to their craft. Exploring a range of photographic styles and genres, they record the past and present upheavals of their homeland as well as tackling subjects such as the nature of memory, the tension between tradition and modernity, and the scars of conflict and loss. Whether documentary or conceptual, their images have global resonance and speak of the hunger for freedom and the power of women to shape the world.

This book explores, through the vision of ten contemporary Iranian photographers, the contrasts and contradictions that exist in Iranian Society at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Each representation is different to the next and each image serves to represent the main conflict present in Iran today: that of the power of tradition versus the quest for modernity. Each of the ten photographers has chosen an aspect of daily life in their country, for example, a cafe, a shopping mall, and the clerics, with each serving to show another part of the mosaic of cultural experience in Iran. One theme that remains constant through all of the images is that of women, who remain living symbols of the interaction between change and stagnation. In this book, women test the limits of the Hijab and their experience is used to represent that of young women all around the world.
Distributed by I.B.Tauris