If These Walls Could Talk

We are surrounded by visuals such as photos and other kinds of images in our daily life. Compared with written or spoken texts, people tend to believe more what they see, and visuals are easier to remember because they can transmit more specific messages that are more difficult to grasp in verbal communication. Although political communication today is built on a visual foundation, political communication research often ignores the visual aspects of communication, with the primary focus still on texts and text-based methods. Treated as illustrations to textual or verbal communication, images are still rarely objects of interest on their own.

The work ‘If These Walls Could Talk’, lists a series of articles and asks what binds all of them together despite their content: the image of Iranian people, often women in chador, walking by the iconic anti-US murals of the US embassy in Tehran. The stagnance and toxicity of these stock photos go hand in hand with the narrative shaped by countless stories of US vs. Iran relations published predominantly in Western media over the years. Regardless of what the articles’ content intends to express, this editorial selection of images ties together US-bashing and subjugation of women, reinforcing an unnuanced and dehumanized image of Iran as a country defined by misogyny and seething hate for the West. The work invites the viewer to engage critically with the visual aspects of political communication and the kind of political messages transmitted through visuals.