Digital image alteration from Lizzar Al Nissa , 1824
20 x 12.7 cm, Edition of 10.
1 available

About Queer Alterations:

Queer Alterations is a series of digital collages appropriating drawings from the 19th century edition of a manuscript titled Lizzat Al-Nisa, a book of erotic text and miniature drawings. The ambiguous title of the book translates to 'Pleasures of Women' with a sole focus on heterosexual sex. The text in the manuscript was written by a Persian physician, in the 14th century inspired by a Sanskrit text. These miniatures were painted in an updated version of the manuscript in 1824.

Queer Alterations aims to draw an image of what queerness in the gender segregated spaces may have looked like for women, as well as gender non-confirming people who historically shared these spaces in pre-modernised Iran. One of the ways these drawings are altered is by by removing the men replacing them by women.

The Dance, is made up of 3 separate drawings from the Lizzat Al-Nisa manuscript. In this work, the women are taken out of the drawings and placed together in one image. One of the drawings used in this piece (top right) has been titled by the Welcome collection archive as 'Woman Exhibiting Her Genitalia'. In the original drawing, the woman is displaying her genitals in front of a king and his men, perhaps as a crude gesture to offend him. Perhaps this image can be seen as a symbol of rebellion against the patriarchal ruling which continues to this day in Iran, an archival image of resilience embedded in Iranian women's ongoing history of fighting for freedom.

kasrajalilipour.com