This photograph is dedicated to Mahsa (Jina) Amini, whose death in 2022 after detention by Iran’s morality police sparked nationwide protests led largely by women and youth. A hand holds a white hijab set alight, its flames rising against inverted brain scans that reference medical evidence circulated after her death and widely understood to challenge official narratives. The image shifts between symbolic gesture and evidentiary claim, echoing acts of defiance that became central to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and that continue to resonate amid renewed demonstrations and unrest across Iran in recent months.

The work was first presented in "Eyes on Iran", a public art exhibition organized by For Freedoms at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in New York, overlooking the United Nations headquarters. Developed in dialogue with global human rights advocacy and the U.N. Women campaign 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the photograph situates individual testimony within an ongoing international struggle for bodily autonomy and civil rights.