#MahsaAmini is a light installation that explores the relationship between images and visual consumption within the context of contemporary digital culture.
The work was commissioned by Visual Brasil Festival 2022, with production support from the Telenoika Cultural Association. The project was prompted by the recent killing of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by Iran’s Morality Police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. My decision to address this event also stemmed from a personal concern: confronting my own experience as a European woman with the violence inflicted upon other women under patriarchal systems legitimized through religion. Alongside the installation, a wall label provided context about the events and the emergence of the #WomanLifeFreedom movement, which spread globally through social media.
The rapid circulation of images documenting the protests—showing women cutting their hair and burning their veils—turned the Internet into the primary space for the circulation of images and the organization of a movement with global impact. The Internet thus reveals itself as an ambivalent tool: capable of generating worldwide movements of collective resistance while simultaneously transforming any experience into consumable content.
It is precisely from this tension that the installation emerges. Formally, the work takes the appearance of an attractive, photogenic object: a circular red light structure and a composition of metallic elements create an optical illusion that appears to vibrate or blur depending on the viewer’s position. The work is deliberately designed as a photocall: it is mounted on a wall at body height, encouraging visitors to position themselves in front of it and produce a new image of themselves. In this way, the selfie ceases to be a spontaneous reaction and instead becomes the central mechanism of the work.
The installation reflects on this paradox and on the way visual overstimulation gradually dilutes the significance of events within an endless stream of images. The act of turning toward a work born from an episode of political violence in order to photograph oneself reveals how the logic of digital platforms can displace the context from which an image originates in favor of its consumption. The installation transforms this everyday gesture into a metaphor for our relationship with current events: moments that capture our attention only briefly before being replaced by the next image in the feed.