My Two Bodies

My Two Bodies examines the intersection of visibility, memory, and gendered absence through photographic and material strategies. Engaging with censorship and instability of the image, it investigates how realities are shaped by what is seen, obscured, or erased. Referencing the gendered absence of women in Iranian visual culture, the project considers how censorship intensifies rather than eliminates visibility. Drawing from Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, absence is approached not as a void but as an active presence that disrupts the surface of the image. Through processes such as collage, projection, and fabric-based image making, photographs are treated as tactile, mutable objects. Material in this project functions as a conduit for physical connection with images, challenging the separation between vision and touch, reconsidering how absence is materially and sensorially experienced.