A photo of hair tied to a pole is going viral on social media with the claim that it shows a flag made by women cutting their hair as a symbol of defiance against the strict dress code in Iran.
A photo of hair tied to a pole is going viral on social media with the claim that it shows a flag made by women cutting their hair as a symbol of defiance against the strict dress code in Iran.
“The world’s most powerful picture comes out of Iran,” said a Facebook post describing the image of the flag, which had started doing the rounds in the wake of the protests. 22-year-old Mahsa Amini dies, Ms Amini died after being detained by Iran’s ‘ethical police’ for not wearing a hijab properly, thus violating the country’s dress code.
This claim was also shared by prominent personalities.
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei wrote a . shared a link to first post Image caption, ‘Flag of honour: Iranian women hoist hair cut on stick as the most powerful symbol of dissent.’
Writer Taslima Nasreen has also shared a similar post.
The death of Mahsa Amini sparked a wave of protest, for which Iranian regime responds to lethal action, Protesters are publicly burning hijabs, cutting their hair and raising slogans of ‘death to the dictator’, against harsh laws that severely curtail women’s rights.
but Hindu It was found that the symbolic ‘hair flag’ is not what it is made of.
A reverse image search revealed it to be an artifact visual artist Edith Dekindto,
A screengrab from a video of the artwork, available on Edith Dekindt’s official website.
We also contacted spokespersons for the various art galleries representing Edith, who confirmed that the flag was part of one of their art installations.
“The picture with the flag made of hair used by social media for protests in Iran is actually a still from a video installation created by Belgian artist Edith Dekindt. The video installation titled ‘Ombre Indigen Part 2 (Ile de la Martinique)’ was created in 2014. What is used on social media is only a fraction of his work,” said Magali Vince, spokesman for the Galerie Greta Meert, Belgium.
Jonas Kryszelit, director of the Konrad Fischer Galerie in Germany, gave the following official description for the artwork:
“A flag made of human hair was stuck in the ground and filmed atop cliffs on the Diamond Coast in Martinique. There, precisely, on the night of 8 April 1830, a secret slave boat carrying a hundred African captives, douard Glissant was buried in the small town of Diamant, not far away, before being completely destroyed. A native of the island, the author used the concepts “tout-monde” (one-world) and “creolization”. In the original, the latter is more like “interbreeding causing unpredictability”.
Galerie Karin Gunther in Germany also confirmed this.
Raising the claim, the French public service broadcaster arte To put this in context ran a section.
“… yet this shot was taken not in the current context of the uprising in Iran, but in Martinique in 2014. It is taken from a video by Belgian artist Edith Dekindt, who created a hairdo set on cliffs off the Diamond Coast This flag was filmed on the island of Martinique. According to the catalog that accompanies this work, it symbolizes the tragedy of a boat that was completely destroyed at this site and which transported a hundred African slaves in 1830, as well as the Martinican philosopher Edouard Tributes were also paid to Glissant.
While many are sharing the image of the flag as a symbol of the anti-government movement in Iran, the claim that it was made from the hair of protesters is false.
Fact Check: Fake