“In my photography I deal with social issues that concern and inspire me. I try to portray different aspects of Iranian women’s life.

Two years after my graduation I married and left my family home for the first time. In Iran, few people live on their own, especially girls, as it is not socially acceptable. The only time women are faced with practical domestic duties is when we are married, hence the association of domestic chores with marriage. Suddenly I had to cook, iron and clean, and be a housekeeper as well as a photographer and wife. I was also perplexed by the many wedding presents I received that were to do with housekeeping.

This new life inspired my series, Like Everyday (2001-2002), which explores the expectations made on married women in traditional societies. Here, a woman is condemned to repetitive routines of tea making, preparing meals, cleaning, sweeping and serving.

The outsider’s perception of Iranian women is of a silhouette under a black chador. Rather than use these, seen in so many pictures of Iran, I chose the richly patterned, colourful and feminine ones that women traditionally wear inside their homes to receive guests. My faceless subjects are then juxtaposed with items of domestic equipment: an iron, a broom, a kettle, a tea cup, pots and pans and other kitchen utensils. Had I lived alone for some time, like many of my friends in Europe, maybe such subjects would not have inspired me.”