Matchstick Heroines

StudioUs
To amplify the voice of Iranian women, Shermin Kruse (author, producer, entrepreneur) and James Gustin (photographer, storyteller) are teaming up for a longitudinal artistic work that creates captioned portraits of Iranian-American women set against the backdrop of a duplicated mosaic of their heroines and heroes, the protesting men and women on the streets of Iran. The mosaic backdrop spells Woman Life Freedom, the calling card of the protestors.
The Iranian-American women in the portraits shown in the foreground of the exhibition cannot be with their sisters and brothers back home. They cannot bleed with them or scream with them. Unlike their fellow Iranians, they risk nothing by being photographed. They can only amplify the voices of home - hoping that adding their voice on this side of the oceans will highlight the issues and, even if for a moment, comfort those at peril. The exhibition encapsulates the struggles of the diaspora, juggling their survivors' guilt.