Part of me has always resisted the Western clichéd image of Muslim women, depicting them as nothing more than silent victims. My art, without denying 'repression,' is a testimony to unspoken female power and the continuing protest in Islamic culture.

In this Western world that we have, culture risks being [only] a form of entertainment.

There's something when you're always immersed in the natural landscape where it becomes your healer, in a way, at the same time that it also becomes sort of frightening. I guess that's how I see things, in that form of duality.

The idea of feeling displaced, and never feeling safe anywhere in the world, where you always feel like you're safer if you're over there, is not just my experience. If you went to Iran today or an Iranian came to America today, or the fact that there are bombs exploding everywhere, there's just a tremendous sense of fear and feeling a desire for security.

Every Iranian artist, in one form or another, is political. Politics have defined our lives.

To me, editing is not something you can do in a rush because the artists themselves are not always their own best editors. Time is absolutely everything.

I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart - the truth - of the culture.