The paper examines the significant interpretive polarization that currently characterizes scholarly discourse over Iranian government murals. The major Literature reveals a Culture-Centric perspective that has become the norm for decoding such paintings using Shi‘i iconography and themes of sacrifice. Under this perspective, the paintings are regarded as genuine cultural phenomena that promote cultural identity and exemplary values. It follows that most scholarly discourse has been based upon this internal cultural semantics that fails to scrutinize its ideological undertones.
Conversely, the Power-Centric/Critical method, again a marginal paradigm, provides a seemingly different interpretation. This paradigm focuses the murals on the sites of state power and visual ideology. Two exemplary studies exemplify the difference in interpretations:

(1) Child-soldier imagery, in which images of child soldiers are seen as heroic patriotism within the dominant discourse, but as a visual mechanism that normalizes violence, hides state responsibility, and fits with coercive mobilization patterns within critical scholarship. (2) Leader portraits: in the Culture-Centric approach, these are hailed as icons of spiritual leadership and national integration, while in the literature they are seen as manifestations of a cult of personality. In this way, the research argues that the Culture-Centric Discourse’s hegemony has created a blind spot in academia that obstructs the discipline’s potential to examine the issue of power, agency, and human rights. The research argues for the need for a more complex framework of analysis that can combine the cultural specificity of Iran with the political system of public visibility.

Authors:
Reza Tavakoliabandansari, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

About the Presenter(s)
Reza Tavakoliabandansari, PhD Candidate at Sapienza University & Humboldt University. Researching Iranian political iconography, state murals, and the intersection of visual culture and power.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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