Mahsa Attaran arrived in the United States in mid-December 2021 from Shiraz, Iran, to pursue a degree in fine arts. She brought along warm clothes for a winter she had never experienced and even warmer feelings for the place she was leaving. 

“I also had so many little bags of spices, dried fruits, snacks very carefully packed with my parents’ hands, with all the love and care they had for me,” Mahsa said. 

She never threw those bags out. Never threw out the hand-written labels on the bags. Her parents, she said, were a treasure. “When I was so far from them and couldn’t bring that whole life with me, I just had [these bags] as a treasure,” Mahsa said. “I think that was the start of shifting my mindset about art and what I wanted to do, what my message would be.” 

When her show — “My Heart Is Tight For You” — opens in the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery on Thursday night, November 13, the hand-written labels are part of the exhibit. The show speaks to her love for her family and her country, but also to the human rights situation in Iran and its restrictions on freedom of expression, particularly among women.  

Mahsa said her work can be considered political. “I was feeling guilty about that, saying that people already don’t have a good view of my country, so why am I doing this?” Mahsa said. “Then someone said to me, ‘The criticism is coming from your love. It is an act of love and care.’ And that is right. ... At the same time [that] I am criticizing and I am trying to educate people about the women's rights and human rights issues we have in Iran in a patriarchal system, I want to show Persian art, hints of that. I know the government is oppressive, but we have a very rich culture, rich art.” 

She said she hopes to raise awareness through her show, to educate those who view it, to have them leave with a question: “Why is it like that in Iran?” She also hopes, she said, “for people to be grateful for the freedom they have. ... I had a completely different experience, and I want to share that, not for people to feel bad for me ... but just to learn more about the world.” 

Mahsa didn’t start out wanting to be an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She didn’t start out hoping to be a photographer. She earned her first degree, a bachelor’s in anesthesiology, from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, in 2016.   

“I always wanted to become a doctor or something in the medical field because I had a big passion of helping others,” she said.  

When she was a sophomore in college, she heard about a photo competition and soon discovered a new passion. She did not have a smartphone at the time, but she did have a small camera that she had bought when she was 14. She hadn’t used it much, but she began to snap away for the photo competition and has been doing so ever since. After graduating college, from 2016-2021, Mahsa was a commercial photographer in Iran and opened a studio in Shiraz where she taught. Still, there was something more that she wanted. She had been self-taught but wanted to pursue photography and fine arts academically. She began graduate studies at the University of North Dakota in 2022 before transferring to the University of Connecticut, where she graduated in May with a master’s of fine arts in studio arts, concentrating on photography. 

She started teaching photography at Loomis Chaffee this fall, and said she is enjoying the opportunity. “I have always loved the idea of sharing what I know,” Mahsa said. “It feels so good — the ‘oh, wow’ moments students have in my classes when they figure out the magic of art, what this little tool can do, and what their hands can do because the camera cannot do anything. ... It is not the camera, it is you. … I love to share my stories with students, to inspire them to think about using art and the camera as a tool to make a better world.” 

Mahsa was at UConn in September of 2022 when an Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was murdered in Tehran after being arrested for allegedly violating rules requiring women to wear hijabs to cover their heads. In reaction to her death, thousands of women, men, and children took to the streets to protest. At the time, Mahsa said, she wasn’t sure exactly what fine arts would mean to her, but the killing made her angry and sad. She said she felt “this is something I need to talk about.”  

Her work expresses her feelings. In her artist statement she says, “Inspiring even one person to question injustice is a step toward meaningful change.” 

Because she has chosen to speak out, she said, she does not feel comfortable attempting to go back home.  

“If I just inspire one person to [ask] why and what is happening, just being more curious, I have [reached] my goal because I have literally sacrificed seeing my family back home, my beautiful city, to educate people,” Mahsa said. “Not that I am saying I am doing a big thing. People regularly sacrifice their lives in Iran, and I feel guilty for not being able to do more. But at least this is my responsibility to do whatever I can to tell people not only about women in Iran, people in Iran, but also [about] so many people in other countries. For example, women in Afghanistan. And women overall have less rights than men, even in the U.S. So, what are my rights, why is it like this, what should we do, what is our responsibility?” 

There are vintage photos in the show. The women are covered by Persian rugs. Mahsa uses vintage photos because the oppression of women, the patriarchal system of the government, has existed for many years. The women are covered up because, as Mahsa says, the government “is trying to sweep us under the rug.” But, she said, “we are not going back. We are not going to accept oppression.” 

The fight for freedom continues in Iran.  

“When I am talking about systematic oppression and forcing women to wear a hijab, it is not that I am talking against the hijab. What I am trying to say is against the compulsory hijab,” Mahsa said. “...We just want the freedom to choose to wear that as well as many basic rights that we do not have, not just as women, but as human beings, in Iran.” 

In conjunction with "My Heart Is Tight For You" in the Mercy Gallery, there are two student exhibitions: "Fall Term Student Work" and the College-Level Art Seminar exhibition “Humanness," both on view in the Barnes and Wilde galleries. All exhibitions will run through January 18.