User:Elizabethmprice/gap analysis

Gap analysis

 * What is the title of the article in which you identified a gap. If no article exists at all, what should the title be?

Mona Shomali
 * Document the gap you found, describe how you identified it, and analyze its impact on knowledge.

Iranian history is filled with turmoil. In 1953, Mohammad Mossadeq, the democratically elected nationalist of Iran was overthrown in a coup d’état engineered by British-US intelligence. Soon after, Ayatollah Khomeini was catapulted to rule in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Ayatollah believed that Iran needed to be washed of imperialist remaking that imposed individualistic and capitalistic values on society which elevated the few and weakened the many. The veil was used as a symbol in the revolutionary goal of remaking Iranian society at its core. For my gap analysis I wanted to highlight a feminist artist from the Middle East in order to highlight the misconceptions that revolve around women from Muslim countries. Americans hold stereotypes and racist views of Iranian and Muslim women, which worsened after the attacks on September 11th. Although artists, Shirin Neshat, Parastou Forouhar, and Shadi Ghadirian have Wikipedia articles they are rather short and lack sufficient information. With the lack of information about prominent female artists from the Middle East it caused me to question the number of artists that were not even recognized. I discovered Mona Shomali’s name on a website containing feminist artists from Iran and when I searched for her name on Wikipedia I found nothing. Muslim women are often stereotyped and victimized in media and the minds of American’s, however, what we see is a limited version of the truth exacerbated by single accounts of women, shadow written by westerners. It is important that other stories of Middle Eastern women are acknowledged and shared around the world, and that these stories give agency to the women themselves.
 * Propose a paragraph of new or substantially edited content based on reliable sources. (If you are editing existing content, post the current version along with your edited version, and clearly mark which is which.)

Mona Shomali, an Iranian-American, was born in 1979 in Los Angeles and raised in San Francisco. Shomali was born in America during the Iranian Revolution and lived in the West in the aftermath of September 11th. Her work reflects the conflicting struggle bItween her ranian and American. identities Her paintings find influence from Joan Brown, Elmer Bischoff, and David Park from 1950-1965 in the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

The heritage of her Iranian past is as much a part of Shomali’s culture as her American traditions are. Being a first generation immigrant, Mona cannot separate her race from her culture, but rather lives in the space between the two. Behaving in accordance with American traditions can mean going against Iranian traditions and being ostracized by the Iranian community. Shomali emphasizes that Iranians living in Iran have much different experiences, including riots and protests, the Iran-Iraq war, and the hostage crisis, that makes their background much different than hers. Mona has never worn a chador and cannot share the experience of being veiled with Iranian immigrants.

Mona Shomali’s Naked Folklore Collection consists of various paintings of family and friends that juxtapose nakedness with traditional Iranian pieces. In Iran there are no discussions of nudity; her mother often discussed the meaning of sexuality in Iran during the 50s and 70s and how women did not have ownership over their own bodies. It was not widely known was the word for vagina is in Farsi because it was not commonly talked about. Shomali wished to have the women in the paintings form their identities based upon how they saw themselves, not how others defined them. Mona wishes to challenge the typical portrayals of Iranian women in America.
 * List the reliable sources that could be used to improve this gap. (You can use the Cite tool from the editing toolbar above to input and format your sources.)


 * "Call to Arms". REORIENT - Middle Eastern Arts and Culture Magazine. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
 * "FutureChallenges >> Artist Mona Shomali: Ecology not for 'stiff lab coats'". futurechallenges.org. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
 * "Iranian-American Artist Mona Shomali". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
 * "Iranian Artist's Fearless Nudes". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
 * " "Naked Folklore:" Artist Mona Shomali Explores Iranian Women's Identities". Muftah. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
 * "Pars Art leaves a. "The art of Mona Shomali << Pars Art". Retrieved 2016-02-15