Shirin Neshat Quotes

Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance.

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

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

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

Being political is an integral part of being Iranian. Our lives are defined by politics.

Art is no crime. It's every artist's responsibility to make art that is meaningful

Poets use metaphors and symbolism to construct images. I construct my images in the same way, except that I am using a different form.

Beautiful woman wrapped in chadors, with huge machine guns in their hands. Brilliant, shocking, amazingly contradictory images. They compelled me to deeply investigate these ideas.

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.

Nature has the most powerfully healing effect.

My mother is my last point of security in relation to my past, and if that breaks, I will not ever have that type of pure love or pure attachment.

I really am a strong believer that with editing, it should take a long time. Even you yourself are not capable of making the right decisions; sometimes you need a distance.

I believe we don't need to widen the divide between the West and Islam. Rather, we need to build dialogue to encourage tolerance and respect.