A Gaze through the Veil:

One would agree with this viewpoint that the woman waiting in silence and then theman listening intrigued by her singing is very important, as it symbolizes theoppression and desire for change that is within the Iranian people. Even though themen listened to the male singer’s performance they were not as intrigued as they arewhen the women began her song. Is this reaction a symbol of want, want for changeand a want to break the laws of the strict Islamic regime that controls their actions andcommunications? In his essay An Extraordinary of the Inward Octavio Zaya believesthat “Turbulent is a reflection on the tension that might help collapse the boundariesbetween those who have power and those who don’t, and on the pushes and pulls thatcontribute to the disintegration of the assumed boundaries between desire andrepression, seduction and destruction, sex and violence.”With its minimalist plot, Turbulent depicts the renewed banning on women’s publicsinging, which took place in 1979 after the revolution. The power and emotiondisplayed in the woman’s refusal to be silenced. In Iran, a woman is not onlyregulated on her physical concealment within the chador which I have discussed inthe last chapter, but also on the regulation of her own voice. If a woman is to allowherself to speak freely in public, she is seen as a “nag and a long tongued woman”(Milani, 2001, p.9). This restriction on free speech and free expression is Neshatsprimary concern in this film. But Neshat does not only deal with the censorship that isinflicted on Iranian women, but also with the issues of sex-segregation and spatialissues. She addresses this division of sexes by her use of two-channel installation.Fig 7: Shirin Neshat, Turbulent, Still from Video Installation, 1998.