As simple as it is, this work depicts the singer Giti from her vinyl album cover “Yeh del daram” (I Have a Heart), 1969, and “Beh man nakhand” (Don’t Laugh at Me) from the same year, as well as Googosh from the vinyl cover of “Jomjomak Barge Khazoon” (The Shaky-Shaky of the Autumn Leaves) from 1970, collected and documented by artist Afrang Nordlöf Malekian and writer and researcher Nour Helou.

Giti and Googoosh, like many other artists, had to leave Iran after the revolution in 1979. Googoosh stayed in Iran and was sentenced to silence until she left the country in 2000. The ban from practicing her artistry became the voice of absent singing females in the Iranian public sphere. On a broader scale, this silence translated into a metaphor for the oppression of the people in Iran. Until the present day, this ban on female singing in public spaces remains. The question addressed in this work is taken from Afrang Nordlöf Malekian’s Master’s thesis, Keeping up with the Iranians (The Dutch Art Institute, 2022), on Iranian music production in Los Angeles. He follows the fictive artist Setareh, who faces this very issue in her search for success in Dubai and Los Angeles.