This BBC News video, published in September 2013 in the Picture This series, looks at She Who Tells a Story, an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, that brought together 12 contemporary women photographers from Iran and the Arab world. Curator Kristen Gresh tells the BBC that the show and its accompanying book offer a different lens on the politics and culture of the region, as a generation of photographers uses the camera to question stereotypes and explore identity.
Among the artists featured is the Iranian photographer Shadi Ghadirian, alongside Newsha Tavakolian, Gohar Dashti, Shirin Neshat, Boushra Almutawakel, Lalla Essaydi and others. Born in Tehran in 1974, Ghadirian studied under the photographer and historian Bahman Jalali and was among the first photography graduates of Azad University. Her images look at daily life in post revolutionary Iran, with particular attention to the women of her generation, and she cofounded Fanoos Photo, a platform for contemporary photography in Iran.
Tabari has a long connection with her work. In September 2003, in the gallery's first season in Dubai (formerly Artspace Dubai), Visa-Vie presented Ghadirian together with her teacher Bahman Jalali. The BBC feature places her among the photographers whose work reached major museum audiences in the decade that followed, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum's Light from the Middle East in 2012.