We had so much in common, being Iranian, being artists in the diaspora. The minute it was over, we couldn’t separate-me and Shoja, romantically, but everyone else, too.

We shot over two days in a high school on the Lower East Side. We had only $20,000 for the whole project. He said, no, no-not me! But we just had him try. We needed someone Iranian, and we all looked at Shoja. We-Sussan, Ghasem, Shoja, and I-were all together, trying to figure out who could lip-synch the male part. Shahram Nazeri, one of the most renowned classical Iranian singers, sang the part of the man. Sussan was an old friend of mine, and she had just moved to New York. I developed the idea into more of a sociological piece about Iran and how women are forbidden from singing in public. I came back to New York and thought I’d like to make a two-channel video with one man, one woman-one with an audience, one without. What was really provocative for me was that she couldn’t see her audience. I stood there, devastated by her music it was so emotional. Her voice was tremendous, and there were all these people gathered around her. Turning the Tide: 'Sun & Sea' at the Brooklyn Academy of Musicīefore I made Turbulent, I was in Turkey and saw a young blind woman singing on the street. Portuguese Pavilion at Venice Biennale Comes Under Fire as Curator Alleges 'Inconsistencies' in Process Then there’s Sussan Deyhim, the female singer, and her husband, Richard Horowitz, a musician and composer. Next to Arita is Shoja Azari he played the male singer in Turbulent, and became my partner.

The woman below her is Azin Valy, an architect and one of my best friends. Then Arita Shahrzad, who I ended up collaborating with on my photography series, “Women of Allah.” She has an incredible face. Next to him is Bahman Soltani, the producer. He just shot my latest video, which I’m showing at the Broad this fall. The man on the far right is the cinematographer, Ghasem Ebrahimian. For every one of us, life changed after we made this video together. The video went on to be very successful-it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999. The photo marks the beginning of what would become a long collaboration and friendship among all of us in the picture. We were at the Whitney Museum’s Philip Morris space in October 1998 Eugenie Tsai curated the show. This was the premiere of Turbulent, one of the first videos I ever made.

Shirin in shahrzad series