[This interview is published as part of a dossier on the June 2025 Israeli war on Iran. To read the dossier introduction and view a complete listing of its contents, click here.]
During the twelve-day war on Iran, a flurry of statements, commentaries, and open letters appeared across digital platforms, institutional websites, and social media feeds. Produced by artists, academics, activists, NGOs, and cultural institutions, these utterances offer a volatile yet revealing window into the political, affective, and discursive landscape of the moment. How can such ephemeral material be preserved? And what is at stake in deciding what counts as part of the archive?
Leili Adibfar, an art historian and cultural critic, created a digital archive of these documents as they were issued. The archive, accessible here, includes forty-two public statements from the start of the war on 13 June 2025 until three weeks after direct hostilities ceased as well as twenty-eight reports and opinion pieces, a plethora of media interviews by experts, and select examples of visual art. It exhibits the range of perspectives provoked by the conflict across Iranian civil society as well as among Iran’s global diaspora.
In this interview, Adibfar discusses the process, criteria, and ethical stakes of collecting material in real time, highlighting the risks of omission and the responsibilities of archiving in moments of crisis. Her remarks are followed by Azam Khatam—an instructor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, with a Ph.D. in Urban Environment from York and a background in sociology—who engages the substance of the collection. Drawing on her expertise in urban politics and Iranian society, Khatam maps the discursive terrain, identifying patterns, silences, and surprising interventions.
Together, these reflections raise broader questions about the politics of memory, the dynamics of Iranian civil society, and the contested role of public voice during war.
—Nazanin Shahrokni and Arash Davari
Arash Davari & Nazanin Shahrokni (AD & NS): Could you walk us through the process of archiving these materials? What conceptual and practical choices did you confront in deciding what to include, and on what grounds? Beyond the question of collecting, how did you think about criteria—of relevance, representativeness, or even authority—that shaped the contours of the archive?
Leili Adibfar (LA): A few days into the war, I began noticing a stream of statements issued by Iranian associations, societies, unions, activists, and public figures, as well as expressions of solidarity from other locales. Some had appeared with striking immediacy, such as the statement from the National Union of Iranian Bar Associations,[i] released on the day the war began. As I read them, I became intrigued by the ways they condemned the war and articulated demands—especially since responding to the war had already become a contested matter. While many associations inside Iran denounced the assault, others hesitated or remained silent, and still others, particularly within segments of the diaspora where expression carried fewer risks, voiced support for the war.
Many of the petitioners were familiar actors, visible in recent cycles of protest and civic mobilization, but I was struck by the presence of networks and associations I had not encountered before. From teachers’ unions and feminist networks to retirees’ associations and academic petitioners, the breadth of engagement in issuing statements revealed to me the vitality of Iranian civil society. What also struck me was the range of content. Some statements issued urgent condemnations of Israel’s attacks and appeals to international law, others emphasized national sovereignty or humanitarian concerns, while a few articulated demands that linked the war to ongoing conflicts in domestic politics.
The widening array of voices made me realize that these statements could serve as a lens onto Iranian society, showing how various actors perceived the unfolding conflict, positioned themselves within it, and how they situated the war in broader historical and geopolitical struggles. I decided to compile them as a resource to better understand the scope of Iran’s civil sphere and the various modes of public engagement during such a critical moment.
This decision reflected my growing appreciation of Iranian civil society as an entity that resists internal coercion while asserting self-determination against external aggression—a recognition that only deepened as I collected the statements. Its urgency was further underscored by the near absence of such perspectives in U.S. mainstream coverage of the war, where the daily lives, struggles, and resilience of Iranian society are rarely acknowledged.
Civil society, therefore, provided both a conceptual lens and a practical framework for archiving the war. However, this project was never meant to present a singular idea of Iranian civil society or to idealize it uncritically. Compiling the statements raised a set of interrelated questions: What are statements, what issues do they address, and to whom are they directed? What tangible outcomes might these statements achieve beyond the performative voicing of demands to international organizations or the state? What is at stake when certain statements invoke nationalist discourse—hailing the nation as the “honorable people of Iran”—to emphasize the importance of security and stability for the nation and its people?[ii]
It soon became clear that capturing the experiences and endeavors of society during the war and in its aftermath required more than gathering pronouncements. I expanded the archive to include interviews, commentary, reportage, and images drawn from both Persian and non-Persian sources. Among these, I came to appreciate the journalistic efforts of select domestic periodicals as a resource, covering both the concrete outcomes of the war and the ways it exacerbated coercive measures, in a context where restrictions on the press have led many to find recourse in social and satellite media. I also made use of social media, which served as the exclusive platform for some statements and facilitated the rapid circulation of most. Yet it was important to remain attentive to its limitations and distortions, which functions through algorithmic design, and to ensure the accuracy of materials by referencing official and institutional sources and verified media outlets.
AD & NS: Curating socio-political and cultural materials in moments of crisis inevitably raises ethical and representational questions. What kinds of responsibilities did you feel you were taking on in assembling this archive, and how did you grapple with questions of inclusion, voice, and positionality?
LA: Today, the term “curation” appears across many fields—extending beyond the arts and humanities to media, commerce, and even lifestyle branding. While its connotations shift within different domains, at its core it involves the careful selection, organization, and presentation of materials to preserve, contextualize, interpret, or narrate a subject. Informed by acquired skills and knowledge, curation entails a framework shaped by the curator’s subjective engagements in interaction with institutional expectations or the particular demands of a context. As with any act of curation, my decision to initiate this archive grew from my care for and engagement with the subject.
However, I hesitate to call my efforts curation. The term seems inadequate to convey the urgency that propelled the attempt to archive an unfolding war. This urgency brought with it an ethical imperative aimed at comprehensiveness. I deliberately refrained from limiting my choices to materials that would align with my own positionality or frame the war through my interpretation, narration, or appraisal. Instead, I set out to gather coverage, responses, and viewpoints—together with the critiques and debates they provoked among diverse forces in the public sphere—as they emerged over time.
The pursuit of inclusivity gave the archive a degree of objectivity, conditioned by the unpredictable dynamics of an ongoing event, which in turn tempered the subjective lens typically associated with curation. This approach shaped the archival procedure, rendering it not a closed projection of a single curator’s vision, but a living resource. As a collection, the archive remains open to additions and attentive to shifting boundaries, recognizing that contemporary conflicts rarely have clear beginnings or endings. Instead, they unfold across multiple arenas—on the ground, in the media, and within public discourse–requiring an archive capable of adapting to their evolving contours.
AD & NS: What, if any, connections do you see between collecting this archive and the work you do as an art historian? How would you describe the relationship between aesthetics and politics in light of this project?
LA: My disciplinary background guided the collection and construction of the archive, helping me to give shape and structure to a body of materials that was otherwise fragmented and dispersed. At the same time, it made me acutely aware of the relationship between aesthetics and politics. The archive is not merely a procedural effort of data collection; it is a cultural and political act. Decisions about how materials are gathered and arranged resemble efforts to compose a work, a process that exercises judgement and thus carries political weight. In this sense, the archive becomes a space where structural evaluation and ethical responsibility intersect—an encounter that both draws upon and provokes reflection on my disciplinary training.
AD & NS: How do you reconcile the aspiration to “collect everything” with the recognition that acts of ordering and arranging are never neutral? In other words, where do you see the limits of objectivity and inclusivity in an archive that is, by definition, also interpretive?
LA: Perhaps this is the puzzle facing any archival effort. There will always be a tension between the attempt at objectivity—to include as many perspectives as possible—and the interpretive traces we leave behind. Even when the archive contains subjective elements and its collection and organization entail choices, the result is a glimpse of the diverse voices that make up society. That is, at least, the hope.
AD & NS: Azam, how would you map the discursive terrain? What general patterns did you notice across statements?
Azam Khatam (AK): As Leili pointed out Iran’s civil society is highly diverse in political orientation and forms of social mobilization. The institutions and individuals who took a stance—whether through statements, interviews, or silence—reflect this plurality. Most condemned Israel’s attack. Drawing on the archive, I reviewed 25 statements issued by associations and 10 letters authored by individuals inside Iran.[iii]
Three aspects stood out to me:
First, shock at vulnerability. The attacks revealed how fragile Iran’s military-security infrastructure was. Expressions like “a nation without a state” (Noushin Ahmadi, June 27) articulate a sense of insecurity unprecedented in Iran.
Second, shock at international support for the assault. SKODA’s early statement captured this, urging global legal associations to recognize the blatant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and calling on them not to remain silent in the face of such a catastrophe. It appeared to me that young activists, in particular, felt betrayed: they had imagined “the West” as supportive of Iranian artists and human rights defenders. This political imaginary was reinforced by the wave of international support for the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom Movement (WLF), but collapsed when Israel attacked Iran with widespread international backing. It made clear that the intersection of the WLF movement’s power to challenge the IRI with Western-imposed sanctions and political pressures must neither obscure the colonial legacy of U.S. involvement in the region nor exaggerate the capacity of human rights internation institutions to restrain war and violence.
Third, debates over courage and truth-telling. Figures like Morad Farhadpour called for boundaries with the government, pushing back against the “rallying around the flag” discourse that followed the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the Quds Corps commander, in 2020. Groups like the Writers’ Association of Iran (WAI),[iv] the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association, the Sharif Islamic Students Association, and small radical labor and Baluch women’s groups, and nationalist activists gathered on the Milliyun Iran website took dual stances: opposing both “foreign aggression and domestic tyranny.” As the WAI put it in a statement, “Every nation has the right to resist aggression and refuse submission to a freedom-crushing authority.”
Some statements, including those by academics, the Iranian Sociological Association, and SKODA, postponed direct criticism of the government until after the war. As the statement issued by 55 professors and cultural activists, titled ‘A Group of Professors and Elites in Defense of Iran,’ declares: ‘To thwart the aggressors’ plans against our territorial integrity, let us set aside grievances and criticisms for the future, support the defenders of our beloved Iran, be true children of our time, and do our part to ensure its enduring survival. Since universities in Iran are largely state-run, members of these organizations—whether academics tied to the state or lawyers closely linked to government institutions—tend to be cautious about protecting their positions. By contrast, the most risk-taking activists were those with international recognition and visibility. For instance, the statement titled “End the Enrichment and War”—signed by Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi alongside five prominent lawyers and filmmakers—did not explicitly condemn Israel’s attack. Instead, it called for a halt to nuclear enrichment, the pretext for Iran’s military targeting. Notably, after a huge backlash, two of its authors later condemned Israel’s aggression in subsequent interviews.
During the IRI’s most fragile moments, civil society activists’ anti-foreign-attack stance strengthened their internal solidarity, boosted their popularity, and sparked protests against their imprisonment and house arrest. This alignment may seed an anti-war movement in Iran, one that challenges both regime-change advocates invested in militarism and hardliners seeking to preserve the Islamic Republic through further securitization.
AD & NS: Why do you think it was important to gather these statements together in one place? What does seeing them side by side—across unions, student groups, professional associations, and individuals—allow us to understand about Iranian civil society that we might otherwise miss?
AK: Compiling an archive and studying and comparing these statements revealed that the manner of engagement with the state lies at the core of the differing perspectives expressed in the statements. Some align themselves with the state; others address it directly, urging it to work toward securing peace; still others disregard it entirely, criticizing it alongside denouncing the aggression.
This reflects the dilemmas faced by civil society activists in engaging with the state after three years of tension following the 2022 movement. Throughout 2023, efforts were focused on securing the release of arrested activists and reinstating those who had been dismissed from universities, schools, artistic production centers, women’s rights organizations, and even professional associations of doctors and lawyers.
The release of a significant portion of prisoners, initiated by the judiciary in February 2023, contributed to easing political tensions,[v] yet the 2024 elections failed to inspire civil society activists, and they did not form any campaign to engage with candidates and advocate for their demands.[vi] In any case, the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian refused to enforce mandatory hijab policies in public streets.
The strategy of avoiding direct engagement with the state emerged as some civil society activists retreated—voluntarily or under pressure—into clandestine, autonomous spaces. These venues hosted unpermitted artistic productions and offered alternative forms of higher education, expanding cultural autonomy while simultaneously limiting the broader scope of civil society activism.[vii]
However, military aggression and war—understood as a collective calamity in which the state played a central role—once again focused attention on the state. In this context, radical reformists, whether imprisoned, under house arrest, or politically marginalized, raised voices of dissent with the onset of the war. This development unfolded as a mutually reinforcing process: civil society statements revitalized radical reformists, who in turn helped reopen space for civil society mobilization.
The statement by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, leader of the 2009 Green Movement, calling for a constitutional referendum and condemning military aggression against Iran, together with the Reform Front’s 12-article statement advocating national reconciliation, a halt to nuclear enrichment, and other measures to resolve the political deadlock, were two key initiatives demonstrating the mutual interaction between civil society and political actors in Iran.
AD & NS: Were there any silences or noticeable absences in the archive, groups or voices that you expected to speak out but didn’t? How do you interpret that absence? Did any of the statements surprise you?
AK: The most striking was the absence of women’s rights activists and collectives. Nearly all their organizations and circles were dissolved during the WLF movement. As Sepideh Rashno, one of the movement’s activist,[viii] wrote about her “strange experience” of inaction during this war: “Silence, confusion, and passivity among people who had previously been active… the very people who had shaped the Women, Life, Freedom movement.” She noted that this collective inaction should not be read as immorality, but as the outcome of a particular situation— a former human tragedy that has left fatigue, exhaustion, and a loss of hope in its wake. Major labor unions were also largely absent. Some, like truck drivers and bakers, ended their strikes at the war’s outbreak, while oil workers soon resumed protests. State-affiliated labor associations issued statements, but these were dismissed as state-sponsored.
An interesting development was the repurposing of activist infrastructures and networks: Vahid Online, a Telegram channel that emerged during the WLF movement and earned trust by verifying information, became a primary source of war news and documentation.
The future will show whether this fractured landscape can mobilize broader support and build on the infrastructure developed during and after the twelve-day war.
[Click here to return to the introduction of the dossier this interview is a part of and view a listing of the dossier contents.]
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[i] Established in 2003, the National Union of Iranian Bar Associations [اتحادیه سراسری کانونهای وکلای دادگستری ایران، اسکودا]—abbreviated as SCODA and at times SKODA from its Persian acronym—is a non-governmental organization comprising Bar Associations that represent all 31 provinces of Iran. According to its website, its stated purposes include, among others, preserving and protecting the independence of lawyers.
[ii] See “Time to Change the Paradigm: Statement by 180 Economists and Academics on the ‘Necessity of Guaranteeing Iran’s Security, Stability, and Progress.’”
[iii] The list includes Zia Nabavi, a student activist; Mohammad Maljoo, an economist and contributor to the website Naqd-e Eqtesad-e Siasi (Critique of Political Economy); Toomaj Salehi, a dissident rapper in Isfahan; Mohammad Habibi, a spokesperson for the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association; Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, a veteran women’s movement activist; Morad Farhadpour, a prominent intellectual known for introducing and disseminating Western critical theory; Taraneh Alidoosti, an actress and public figure; Hesam Salamat, a lecturer in sociology and public intellectual who runs the Res publica podcast; Sarvenaz Ahmadi, a children’s rights activist; and Sepideh Rashno, a poet and public advocate for Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
[iv] Founded in 1968, the Writers’ Association of Iran aims to promote freedom of expression and defend writers’ rights. Historically, it has been a leading voice against censorship and political repression, and its members—including prominent authors, poets, and journalists—have often faced government persecution for their activism.
[v] Patrick Wintour, Iran’s supreme leader to pardon some detained anti-government protesters, The Guardian (5 February 2023).
[vi] Participation of less than forty percent in the first round and less than fifty percent in the second round of the election, which represents one of the lowest voter turnouts in Iranian presidential elections.
[vii] For the emergence of resistance and informal art, see Pamela Karimi, Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran (Leuven University Press, 2024).
[viii] Sepideh Rashno (b. 1994) is an Iranian writer and activist who came to prominence in July 2022 after a confrontation on public transport over mandatory veiling. She was arrested, forced into a televised “confession,” and later imprisoned for opposing mandatory hijab and for participation in the Women, Life, Freedom movement.