Breaking boundaries, baring bodies: subversion in the works of Iranian feminist artists on Instagram

The Iranian female body has historically been interrogated and disciplined by organizations in power that reinforce the Islamic regime’s socio-political ideologies and cultural frameworks. Drawing on feminist literature on the female body and digital activism, this qualitative study addresses nude art practices. It specifically focuses on three Iranian female artists in the diaspora, whose shared work on Instagram has transformed the female body, which has been a site governed by the Islamic regime’s ideology, into a site of transgressive reclamation of women’s body sovereignty. Visual and content analysis is carried out on the posts to analyse how these artists expose, deconstruct and decry sexism, patriarchy, cultural taboos and other forms of gender oppression on Instagram. Nudity here functions as a transgressive corporeal practice designed to challenge the Islamic state’s restrictive gender and sexual discourses; that is, I argue that these nude artistic works deploy the naked female body as a tool of revolutionary and political act. The findings are contextualized within the broader socio-cultural and political discourses of women’s bodies in Iran.