SINGAPORE, July 5 — When Iranian photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian was interviewing girls who were raped by terrorist organisation ISIS for her work, one particular girl she saw struck her hard.

"We visited this 14-year-old girl who had been held prisoner and raped for more than 20 days, and just escaped from ISIS. There was something in her face, she was just 14 years in age but looked 40 years old,” she shared.

Speaking at the Artist Talk held last Wednesday as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) pre-festival OPEN 2016 (Open. Participate. Engage. Negotiate), Tavakolian revealed that she was forced to confront the futility of her work as a photojournalist in the face of wartime tragedy.

"We wanted to photograph her but she refused. We explained to her how important it was to document her story so the whole world will know what happened to her,” she said. However, the victim’s mother who was sitting next to her, then asked them: "What if the whole world knows? What can they do?”

"We could not answer her so we put away our cameras,” added Tavakolian.

The intense and jarring experience was one of many she encountered while covering humanitarian tragedies in places of conflict such as Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Inspired by the experience and the girl’s struggle to live with the horrors of her situation, Tavakolian ended up writing an essay A Thousand Words for a Picture I Never Took, even though her most comfortable language is visual.

She was undeterred by the challenge of the medium, said Tavakolian, as she is all about embracing such limitations.

Her work as an artist was also inspired by her limitations — this time, of being unable to work as a photojournalist in Tehran during 2009. Spending most of her time in her apartment, she decided to work on a project focusing entirely on the space by her window. This spawned Look, a series of photographs taken in 2009 that captured the absolute stillness and inertia of lives behind closed doors in Tehran through a series of evocative portraits.

"When I faced restrictions, I decided to confine myself and my workspace even more because I wanted to challenge myself, see how far I can go as someone who is facing limitations,” she explained.

Fresh from covering Brexit in Boston, United Kingdom, Tavakolian, who was named Principal Laureate of the Prince Claus Award and a Magnum Photos nominee, shared that she saw no difference between her work as an artist and photojournalist, as both require an inherent sensitivity and empathy — things that underscore her entire repertoire of work.

"For me, in photography, I really like to show and capture the feelings of people and it takes time to capture the feelings and emotions of that person. When I take portraits, I listen, I don’t talk. I don’t want the subjects to feel intimidated by me and I want to see them as they are.”

This blurring of lines between art and journalism is very much parallel to the relationship between traditional arts and commerce in fashion designer Carla Fernandez’s work, which was discussed during A Conversation with Carla Fernandez, also part of the OPEN festival lineup.

Fernandez is famous for fusing avant-garde geometric fashion designs with traditionally woven Mexican textiles. She uses techniques from traditional art to create her signature patterns, which are sold as garments in her online store and in Mexico city.

During the talk last Friday, the British Council’s Young Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008 and winner of the 2013 Prince Claus Award shared her processes working with indigenous Mexican communities as co-collaborators. 

"We only work with communities who want to work with us. We win their trust because we show them how we love talking to them, eating with them and even sleeping in their houses.”

Through being publicly open about the contributions of these diverse ethnic communities in the process of making fashion, Fernandez has raised awareness about the native heritage of Mexico globally. Fernandez does not shy away from admitting the strong commercial aspect to what she does, emphasising the importance of selling. 

"The communities we work with know we sell to Western countries because they have a much bigger market... It is only through selling and sustaining the business (that) we have the ability to do more,” she stressed.

"When people tell me I am empowering women and traditional artisans, I do not see it that way. I am just selling, selling fashion to people. What is different is that we include the meaning of the symbols and designs and videos of the workmanship that goes into creating the fashions.” — TODAY

* OPEN runs until July 9. The Singapore International Festival of Arts is set to run from August 11 to September 17.