Fazilat Soukhakian is an Iranian-American artist, photographer, and scholar who started her career as one of very few female photojournalists in Iran. She is a visual storyteller and her work reflects on the social and political issues of her surroundings as a means for social change. Fazilat’s first solo show, Queer in Utah, ran from March 7th to 30th at Blue Sky Gallery in downtown Portland, OR. I visited the exhibition—a collection of nineteen striking portraits of queer couples in Utah—and then spoke with Fazilat via Zoom. This is a condensed version of our conversation.
—Adie B. Steckel
AS: Queer in Utah is a deeply place-based project. You’ve shown some of these same photographs in a group show at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA)—can you talk first about how the work was received in Utah?
FS: When I started putting together this show back in 2019, the most important thing was to show it in Utah. I’ve tried four or five different places that I have a lot of respect for, but I haven’t had success putting the whole show together in one space in Utah. I’ve found people in Utah are actually more interested in my other projects. I’m not sure I can make a solid comment on why that is. But the show at UMOCA [A Greater Utah] was amazing.
I worked with the curator Tiana Birrell, who was very open to collaboration, and the written component of Queer in Utah—the sentence fragments on the wall next to the photographs—came to be through that process. People really responded to that component of the show. They cared about the words.
AS: As a writer, when I went to see the show at Blue Sky, the text fragments that accompany the photographs immediately stood out to me. Can you talk more about where those fragments came from and what the process was behind arranging them?
FS: Yes, this is a very important part of the show. The idea for this project came to me right after I moved to Utah in 2015, and the reason was that I was immediately exposed to young queer people as an educator. I knew a little about Utah, but I had no clue that life as a queer person in Utah was such a challenge for so many people. But immediately, I saw so many people in my community, from friends, to neighbors, to students, were going through so much, including severe mental health challenges and attempted suicide.
This was shocking to me, because I had lived my whole life in Iran, where queer people face the death penalty. It’s so hard to even talk about it there—queer people can’t freely express it. And it’s not just the government. I think there is very little compassion among people because of the impact that religion has on the culture and mindset. They don’t know enough about it. But I never expected to see that in America. People are losing community. They’re losing support, they’re losing family.
So this project came to me immediately, but I’m not gay. I’m a supporter—an ally—but I’ve always been this boring straight person! So I was very hesitant, because I didn’t know if this is my place, or if I am appropriating queer art and stories. So initially, I decided that I was going to do this project, but I was never going to show it to anybody.
It looked very different at that time. It was all black and white and had more of a documentary style. I was just focusing on one couple, their lives and issues. But I knew that I was limited. I thought that I could never talk about their struggle in my work because it wasn’t my struggle. Yes, I can understand what it’s like to be in a minority group, but this was so different. It is about the body; it is about roles in society. It is about growing up very, very religious and in a conservative setting that I wasn’t familiar with.
I remember reaching out to Myriam and Hannah—the ones photographed with the horse—before I photographed them. Hannah sent me a half-hour-long voicemail telling her story without me even asking. I was like, wow. Can we meet? Can we talk about your story?
I cannot tell you how many times I listened to that voicemail. The voice was so powerful. I had never asked anybody for words, but these words were so powerful, I knew they had to accompany the photographs. So I realized that because I am not part of the community, I needed to include the authentic words of the couples I photographed. Some of the fragments came from conversations, others were written by the people photographed specifically for this. I asked people to write a paragraph or two describing their story and emotions…it was very open-ended.
AS: All the photographs in this show are of queer couples. I’m wondering if you’ve taken any photographs of a single queer person ? Or groups? How did you choose the couple as your subject, and why?
FS: That is actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, and I do think that it’s a big gap in this project. I realized this when I saw all the photographs together on display. I hope to continue this project with more diverse people, and not necessarily couples. On one hand, I think this way reflects how the majority of these people came out by bringing a partner home. The Mormon Church says that it’s okay to be gay as long as you don’t act on it, but these people acted on it by announcing their relationship, and that’s when it really became problematic.
On the other hand, I would like to continue this project with more diverse groups and not necessarily just couples, because that will show that they are brave enough to show their sexuality independently. Many don’t have partners and I don’t want to exclude them from this project, because this project is not just about love and affection, it’s about a whole group of people fighting for their rights, for their body, and against everything in society that is against them.
AS: You describe what it’s like to see all the photographs together in one space for the first time and how that’s shaping your own thinking about the project. You’ve identified new ways of seeing it that you hadn’t before. Is there anything else you’re seeing now, whether it’s a gap or a strength, that you hadn’t considered?
FS: Several people mentioned the complexity of the images and the playfulness between the two people. One is looking away, one is looking at the camera. And I love that. I did it on purpose, but I didn’t know how it would turn out in the space, and it worked. I love that complexity and playfulness in the gaze, in the way that they are holding each other, the way one would be more protective of the other—that playfulness was there.
One thing that I’ve gone back and forth on is the choice of where I photographed people. I think I didn’t necessarily have the best balance between landscape and urban settings. I started with the idea of having them choose where to be photographed, but along the way it transitioned to landscape settings because I felt like a metaphor of how people in Utah—straight couples and hetero-nuclear families—see themselves in nature as natural and beautiful. And I wanted to talk back to that. Like, this is also very natural, you know? This is also very organic, and I wanted to show that. And I do think the ones that are in natural settings are more successful. I think if I were to do more in an urban setting I would want it to be an urban setting with some emphasis on organic elements.
AS: And of course, the experiences of the people being photographed is totally dependent on privacy, or lack thereof. I can imagine it would be very different to go out together to a remote place, versus an urban area, versus in the privacy of someone’s home. And all those things really shape your relationship to the people photographed.
FS: That’s very true.
AS: So I’d like to go back to what you mentioned about not being part of the LGBTQ+ community and how you’ve reckoned with appropriation and your position as an outsider. I definitely see how that comes through in the text. That’s a concrete way of including other voices. How do you see that reckoning happening in the photographs themselves, whether in process or product?
FS: Well, I think I wouldn’t have been very happy if I had gone the way I started this project. As I mentioned, those photographs were black and white and were about a couple and the challenges they were facing in family, in church, in everything. When I look at those photographs, there’s such a gap between me and the subject. I feel that they don’t show me portraying those stories—there was a level of not understanding.
But when I decided to go this route, I was not shy or embarrassed of actually photographing these couples from my outside perspective. That is my perspective. I wanted to show how beautiful that is. I’m not gay, but I look at it and it’s beautiful, it’s organic, it’s natural. It’s how it should be. We see so many photographs of heterosexual couples lovingly hugging each other and their kids and whatever, and that’s “normal.”
I’m not trying to say that I understand what it is to be queer, because I haven’t experienced it. So I decided to show my perspective on the outside—to show how I see them. And that’s when I started to feel comfortable sharing the work, because I’m not pushing and saying, “Hey, look how close I got to them,” and “I know what they’re going through.” No, I don’t, and nobody could, but I’m proud to see them this way, and I want to show them this way.
AS: You arrived at owning the reality of your own position in relation to the subject—the way that you participate. How did you see that change the photographs themselves? The earlier ones were black and white. What else changed once you were more confident in your relationship to your subject?
FS: I really can’t compare those photos with these. Visually, they were telling a totally different story. In these photos, I’m not forcing it. I’m in collaboration. People have said that and I really love that comment. It means so much to me. In the other body of work you can see the distance. Like, I am the photographer, you are the subject, let me just, you know, follow you around, photograph you, and see how it goes.
AS: Were all of those photographs portraits?
FS: No, not necessarily.
AS: It’s interesting that you landed on the portrait, because there’s a way that it emphasizes your difference and distance. Like, you are there and I am here, and this is a capture of my looking at you.
FS: Exactly. Exactly. You understand that I want to show that I am looking at you and this is my observation of you. This is how I see you, and that’s something that was important for me to share.
AS: So in this project you’re focusing on repression that you witnessed in Utah and in relation to the Mormon Church. But I also think it’s doing something much bigger, which is dispelling the myth of the United States in general as a great bastion of freedom and equality. So much of the story of this show is your story arriving in Utah and having a major perspective shift.
FS: Yes, it is. A big part of this project is about my shock. This is not Iran we are talking about. These kids are homeless in America. We’re not talking about some third world country, we are talking about a country that is known for its freedom, equality, and advancement. But the problem is still here and we are seeing this today with the denial of transgender rights. This is something everyone should be talking about. Being silent does nothing. So I’m so glad that you brought up my perspective as being an Iranian, and moving—practically escaping persecution and oppression and everything—and coming to the country that pretends to not deal with this anymore. And here I am again, I see a close community of friends and neighbors dealing with these issues.
Fazilat Zoukhakian, Queer in Utah, Gabby & Jesika, 2019-ongoing.
AS: I think this is particularly important to talk about right now. We’re talking about pinkwashing, so it’s particularly prescient in this moment, as Israel is waging this catastrophic assault on Palestinians.
FS: Yes! I spent my whole childhood during the war between Iran and Iraq. We had eight years of war and I know how catastrophic it is. How can we see these horrific photographs of wars and hear these horrific stories, from both sides? People are the victims of politics.
AS: And then you see the way that degrees of liberalism get leveraged by, well, in this case the United States and Israel. The slightly lesser evil leverages its little bit of liberalism as supposed evidence of its righteousness. So it’s interesting to see Queer in Utah in Portland, when we can kind of gaze at Utah in the same way that someone in Utah might gaze at Iran. I’m curious about that dynamic and if there are other ways you’ve seen it play out in your transition from Iran to Utah.
FS: I’ve always felt that I have the huge privilege of having lived in two incredibly different societies. One where there is no sense of secularism and politics and religion are constantly intertwined. It’s a politics that nobody can trust. There is a gap between the government and the people. But then I came to America as a 25 year-old and I had a very naive understanding. America to me was completely opposite of Iran. Right? Like, whatever we did wrong, they do right, right?
AS: And then you experienced whiplash.
FS: Yes. It was not long before I saw the inequity and injustice that is so prevalent here.
AS: We have to learn to not think in terms of hierarchies from least liberal to most liberal. There’s a network of different forms of oppression manifesting everywhere in different ways. And we do have to hold that there are horrors happening in Iran.
FS: Yes, there’s no question. It’s not about justifying those horrors, it’s about seeing the realities everywhere.
AS: So I’m curious about your background in photojournalism, which I think comes through so clearly in your work in that it aims to expose truths. I think we probably agree that the best art has political implications, but I’m curious about the line for you, if there is one: at what point does activism become art and vice versa? How do you distinguish a photo journalistic project from an artistic one?
FS: I wouldn’t be a photographer if I didn’t want to talk about social justice. Growing up as a woman in Iran I was exposed to inequalities and I became a photographer to express those. Not necessarily only what I experience. Being a photojournalist in Iran deepened my perspective because I was in the center of the news. I was in the Congress with all the men in power passing a law that nobody outside of the Congress wanted. I saw and I witnessed. I don’t believe that contemporary art can be separated from politics. There is no way that we can make art just for the sake of beauty.
AS: Absolutely. All art must be activist, but all activism doesn’t necessarily have to be artistic. So at what point does activism become art? What is the thing that makes something rise or transition out of the realm of photojournalism, for example, and into the realm of what’s considered artistic?
FS: I think the most important aspect of art is that it brings some sort of compassion. Art has the ability to unite people. Art has the language of compassion. Art brings people together. I have respect for all forms of activism and not all activism is art, but I think using art as a tool of activism can incite more change. It plays with people’s hearts.
Fazilat Soukhakian: Queer in Utah
Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon
March 7 to March 30, 2024