My performance, “Against the Rope,” questions the cruelty of a system where death becomes an instrument of repression and calls for collective awareness of this state violence. Dressed in white—a paradoxical color evoking both birth and death, marriage and madness—with a rope around my neck, I stood for two hours, eyes wide open. The performance took place in a cold, dimly lit basement with a stone floor and exposed brick walls, evoking hidden prisons and the isolation of prisoners.

During this time, I spoke and invited the audience to repeat with me words of refusal, such as “No to execution,” as well as the names of Iranians who have been executed or sentenced to death, deprived of their right to make their voices heard, like Toomaj Salehi, an activist and musician. In this work, the audience becomes both witness and participant, a living echo of the voices of Iranians deprived of free journalism and the circulation of information.