Footnotes

• Bahman Jalali's Image on Imagination series superimposes calligraphy and flowing brushstrokes over early 20th Century Iranian portrait photographs. Jalali's artistic genesis lies in the vandalism of old female portraits by religious censors during the Islamic Revolution. Jalali's aim in producing these images is to highlight differing attitudes towards female depiction throughout Iranian history. Whilst the advent of photography at the turn of the century gave rise to the fashionable practice of individual portrait taking, the conservative religious ideology of the Iranian revolution persecuted these images precisely for their femininity and aesthetic beauty. Jallali's images therefore harbour conflicting reactions towards the female form, one of rightful admiration, the other of unjustified moral disdain.