An era of becoming a witness: ecofeminism revisited the redefining of nature in environmental art through the creative resistance of Iranian women artists
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Abstract
The integration of gender into politics in present-day Iran has sparked a multifaceted and evolving process of progress within gender politics. This ongoing journey encompasses advancements and setbacks in women's legal and social status while also witnessing shifts in the perception of the "female subject" within Iranian society. Concurrently, In the context of Iran, it is evident that nature itself is politicized. How nature is perceived, managed, and utilized is deeply intertwined with the country's political ideologies, policies, and power dynamics. The politicization of nature in Iran also intersects with gender politics. The history of art in Iran is also a history of its intellectual, philosophical, and religious engagement with nature. Environmental art has a close relationship with its surroundings, and according to its formal and semantic position, it establishes an interaction between the audience, the artwork, and the landscape. Environmental art is strongly influenced by regional and local culture, and the rituals and traditions can be easily recognized in it. By making viewers aware of their familiar surroundings, environmental artists have always tried to increase their concern about the environment and establish different meanings concerning the landscape. Along with social, political, and philosophical concerns, environmental issues are the most critical factors that have expanded the concept of landscape and developed environmental art.
The medium and approach through which art bears witness to the socio-political and environmental challenges in Iran form the context of the study and the experiment conducted within the framework of ecofeminism-especially in the absence of environmental activists as original witnesses-is the focus. The main goal of the intellectual currents of ecofeminism and its introduction into Iranian society is to direct the environmental art of women artists against the hegemony of masculinity in Iranian society. This project expands the issues raised by reviewing literature on critical issues such as culture, society, gender, borders, and the environment.
By integrating the analysis of gender politics and environmental art, this study examines the intricate developments and influences within contemporary gender politics in Iran. With this in mind, this study aims to explore how environmental art can be used as a testimonial medium for promoting ecofeminism and how this, in turn, can contribute to changing the existing political and social discourse in Iran in general and supporting the social struggle of Iranian women in general and women artists in particular.
The theoretical approach of the study is based on the description of the concepts and definitions of ecofeminism. According to this, the position of women in a feminist analysis system is fundamentally different from that of men. This difference can be established in two ways: an institutional status of socialization and a socio-psychological status. What artists see when they observe the environment goes beyond documentary testimony of environmental damage; they create art that, through its unique forms of testimony, becomes a positive ecological intervention, giving aesthetic and political weight to ecological restoration. Nature, landscape, and environment thus become visible - and criticizability - as aesthetic media of political power relations.
Keywords: Gender policy, Nature, Environmental Art, Ecofeminism, Hegemony Structure, Nature politicization