In My Country Men Have Breasts (2012)

• 68%
• 2012
• Mania Akbari

Akbari was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and she lost her breasts due to the cancer. After she directed, wrote and acted 10+4 which showed her struggle with the cancer, the depiction of the artists body became central in her works. In the same year, Akbari photographed her own naked body for the photo project titled Devastation. Although it was pretty risky, put herself in danger and prohibited to exhibit Devastation in Iran due to the naked images of her own body, Akbari continued to depict her own body as a new medium and new material so that she provided a video secretly as well. In 2012, after Akbari left Iran due to the barred situation of filmmaking and arresting film makers, she uses the video that shoot secretly from her own body in 2007 and juxtaposed with new images and the song of Ahangaran, who was a singer for the war time between Iran and Iraq. As a result of her action and performance, the video project titled In my country, Men Do Have Breasts happened. For Akbari, the aim of this video project is a protest in relation to the current political situation between Iran, United State, and Israel, the war in Middle East, and also the corrupted atmosphere inside of Iran. In my country, Men Have Breast evokes the relationship between the devastating memory of war and the memory of the woman who lost part of her body due to ravages of cancer. The video highlights the symbolic connection between war, as a cancer, and the scars it bears on society. The metaphor also extends as a comparison between individual and society; the interaction of collective and personal memory of the war and death. The song over the video is by Ahangran, a singer whose voice has a heavy tone that symbolizes the massacre and death of the soldiers in the war of Iran and Iraq. This song is part of a difficult collective memory of the Iranian people during ten years of war.