She Who Tells a Story

A woman and a man in wedding garb sit in a burned-out car as tanks lurk in the hills behind them. Another woman reclines amid shimmering opulence made of stitched-together bullet casings. Still another stares straight ahead, hand on heart, with Farsi characters scrolling across her face and arms. These are among more than eighty arresting images in She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World. Through the eyes of a dozen female photographers working in areas from portraiture to documentary, including Lalla Essaydi (whose bullet-casing work you might have seen at 21c Museum Hotel) and photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian, we freshly perceive a complex, misunderstood, and shifting region. The exhibit rebukes Western clichés, particularly the idea of women’s powerlessness. Though it comes to Chapel Hill from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, it dovetails with The Ackland’s new initiative to build its Islamic art collection, and a small adjunct exhibit showcases seven recent purchases, including calligraphic manuscripts and textiles, dating from between the eighth and seventeenth centuries.