In landscapes marked by violence, oppression, and war, there blooms a resilient vision through embodied resistance, radical feminist knowledge production, solidarity, and collective care. 

 

In the grip of power struggles, entrapped by the dark allure of petroleum oil—the black gold that ensnares them in its viscous hold—masculine figures are entwined in the Corrupted Vortex, facing destruction from within. The embodiment of resistance, in juxtaposition to the Corrupted Vortex, is a living testament where flesh and spirit unite to defy oppression, transforming pain into power and vulnerability into unshakable strength.

 

In the currents of historical upheaval, solidarity emerges not merely as an act of survival but as a bold act of resistance and a reimagination of futures. It becomes a tapestry woven with threads of shared struggles and dreams, where we gather under the banner of resistance and hope. In our unity lies strength; in our diversity, a blueprint for a world reborn—where peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, equity, and undying hope.

 

This triptych is part of a larger experiential archive project documenting the intersectionality of Iran’s Woman Life Freedom (WLF) revolution. Sparked by Jina Amini's murder in 2022 for not adhering to compulsory hijab laws, the WLF movement fights for women's bodily autonomy and human rights, often overlooked by Western feminism. The project encompasses over ten thousand artifacts, including daily acts of resistance, ritualistic performances, photos, videos, political graphics, songs, oral histories, poems, letters from political prisoners, slogans, and graffiti. A portion of this archive has been published online, showcasing over 7,000 political graphics created in solidarity with the ongoing Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. Our goal is to develop an immersive 3D web space where participants can engage with the archive and explore communal feminist resistance strategies and practices of collective care.

​

It emerged from a three-month collaborative process in which we trained a generative AI model to understand concepts of power destruction—power that corrodes itself from within—alongside themes of hope, solidarity, and collective resilience. As part of this process, we intentionally worked to surface and correct the software’s embedded cultural and political biases, particularly its limited ability to recognize Iranian visual culture and the aesthetics of feminist resistance. We fed the model more than one hundred images from the Woman, Life, Freedom archive, developed under the BODY as aRCHIVE project, guiding the system to generate imagery that could converse ethically and critically with the lived experiences and visual languages of the movement. The final digital collages reflect this co-constructed, corrective, and deeply intentional method of engagement.

The installation also includes an audio piece featuring readings from Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human-rights defender, journalist, and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, from her recent book White Torture, published in 2023. These readings deepen the work’s engagement with carceral trauma, embodied resistance, and the ongoing struggle for justice.