Woman, Life, Freedom: Posters on French museums in support of the Iranian people

Following yesterday’s International Women's Day, more than fifty French museums have stated they will continue to display posters made during the demonstrations in Iran.

The initiative, which will see the institutions across the country dressing up their infrastructures with artwork related to the protests, will run during the whole of March.

Since the beginning of the riots last September, Iranian cultural institutions have come to a standstill, and the international art community has taken over to document the events.

Drawing on Iranian iconography, a community of artists has been mixing Persian calligraphy with contemporary styles to illustrate the Iranian uprising on social networks. Many posters feature the recurring image of women cutting their hair or removing their hijabs.

The account @iranianwomenofgraphicdesign has catalogued this cross-border collaboration on a single Instagram account, and the various illustrations it brings together have served as the basis for this month's action in France.

For International Women’s Day, the Atelier de Sérigraphie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and four Parisian institutions (Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Palais de Tokyo, the Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée) organized a free distribution of some 7,000 posters.

A press release sent by the Museum of Modern Art in Paris states: "By displaying and distributing these posters, cultural institutions and structures are giving visibility to the images of this struggle and reaffirming their support for Iranian women and men in the face of repression, as well as their commitment to the values of emancipation and freedom.”

Odile Burluraux, curator of the museum and one of the instigators of the project told the Journal du Dimanche that an effort like this has not been seen "since the posters that emerged from the ‘Je suis Charlie’ movement”, following the Paris terror attacks in 2015.

From Paris to Lyon, Lille and Toulouse, the poster rebellion is the art world’s way of continuing to show solidarity.