Dark Dey takes its name from the tenth month of the Persian calendar, specifically 18–19 Dey (January 8–9). This exhibition marks those two days as a moment of total rupture: a 48-hour period during which more than 50,000 people including children were killed across Iran.
Attaran’s practice emerges from the urgency of witnessing this present history from exile. Her work engages with the systemic state violence, censorship, and cycles of repression imposed through extreme Islamist governance. A defining condition of this work is the "blackout", an internet shutdown lasting over two months that severed communication between those inside Iran and the diaspora. This silence produced an ongoing state of witnessing without access, as families and communities remained exposed to instability and surveillance behind a digital wall.
Attaran’s work asks viewers, particularly Western audiences, to confront the lived experience of life under state-enforced Sharia law, where rights are understood yet systematically denied. Rejecting ideological narratives, her practice centers the pursuit of dignity, safety, and self-determination amid ongoing political violence. This is a call for global awareness that transcends simplified narratives; it serves as a stark warning that the world cannot afford to remain a passive observer. If these systems of control are not taken seriously, their implications will eventually reach far beyond Iran’s borders.
Attaran’s earlier work centered on the domestic space, critiquing patriarchal systems and women’s lives under Sharia law. Dark Dey expands this framework outward, reflecting how control bleeds from the home into the streets, shaping public life across gender, age, and class.
Through photography, video, installation, and wearable forms, Attaran frames lived experience as testimony and a refusal of silence, asking viewers to remain with the discomfort of a world in a constant state of loss, endurance, and resistance.
April 26 - July 5, 2026
Ely Center For Contemporary Arts
New Haven, CT
April 26 - July 5, 2026
Ely Center For Contemporary Arts
New Haven, CT
