I’ve been scrolling through twitter for hours, watching my countries revolution through social media. It’s overwhelming. Can I hope? Hope has led to heartbreak so many times. I see an image of a man in Tehran holding a sign reading “one day we will have a pride march on these streets.” Shit. I had never even thought of that possibility. It had never entered my consciousness. I couldn’t stop thinking of that sliver of hope. Imagine! Imagine being able to march in Iran! With pride flags! I start messaging my queer Iranian friends. Have you ever thought of what a pride march in Iran would be like?” Our conversations flows between dismay, heartbreak and this small glimmer of a queer future in our homeland. ‘It would be the biggest party, it would be incredible’ ‘stop I can’t let myself imagine that, it would be too incredible.’ Words are not my form of communication so I took their words to visuals with AI. Using AI to imagine a intersectional queer future for Iran was not easy. I found myself fighting against typical stereotypes of the Middle east, of gender, of joy. Damn I even found myself fighting the AI to not veil the Iranian women. But I created a series To visualise our futures, to give myself reason to hope.
I’ve been scrolling through twitter for hours, watching my countries revolution through social media. It’s overwhelming. Can I hope? Hope has led to heartbreak so many times. I see an image of a man in Tehran holding a sign reading “one day we will have a pride march on these streets.” Shit. I had never even thought of that possibility. It had never entered my consciousness. I couldn’t stop thinking of that sliver of hope. Imagine! Imagine being able to march in Iran! With pride flags! I start messaging my queer Iranian friends. “Have you ever thought of what a pride march in Iran would be like?” Our conversations flow between dismay, heartbreak and this small glimmer of a queer future in our homeland.
“It would be the biggest party, it would be incredible”
“stop I can’t let myself imagine that, it would be too incredible.”
Words are not my form of communication so I took their words to visuals with AI. Using AI to imagine an intersectional queer future for Iran was not easy. I found myself fighting against typical stereotypes of the Middle east, of gender, of joy. Damn I even found myself fighting the AI to not veil the Iranian women. But I created a series to visualize our futures, to give myself hope.
