Visueller Widerstand

Overview & Synopsis

›Visueller Widerstand‹ (Visual Resistance) highlights the powerful connection between art, protest, and digital networks in the context of the Iranian “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. Following the murder of Zhina Mahsa Amini in 2022, a global movement formed that manifested itself both on the streets of Iran and on social media. The study traces the paths of artistic image production, distribution, and reception on Instagram. Using selected case studies, Scherf shows how protest images spread via Instagram, how they are artistically edited, and how they feed back into the actions on the ground. As protest artworks circulate in digital and analog spaces and reach a global audience, the protests are not only visually amplified. The artworks themselves form a dynamic network that is constituted by hashtags and visual stylistic devices and contributes to the stabilization of the protest movement. Scherf's study develops an understanding of these new forms of digitally networked witnessing as a media and cultural practice and demonstrates, using specially created collections, how these forms of resistance shape the visual memory of the movement. The study thus makes a significant contribution to the investigation of the media conditions and dynamics of contemporary protest movements.