Danish-Iranian artist Firoozeh Bazrafkan has posed nude while Quran passages are read out, despite the threats her work is causing.
The artist and blogger is renowned for including nudity, shredded Qurans, blasphemy and Nazi hymns in her work, but these themes are the reason she now lives a life in which she threatened and harassed on a daily basis.
Bazrafkan said some people harass her and call her things such as an “ugly bitch” or a “whore”, while others tell her to “burn in hell”. She noted that some people even go as far as to send her death threats. She said in some of the letters she gets, the people tell her that if they met her they would happily send her to another world and are prepared to go to prison for it.
Born in Iran, Bazrafkan is using her artwork to show her feelings about women being repressed, particularly in her country of birth, but also other nations in the Islamic world. In her most recent video, she strips naked and puts her clothes over the Quran, while artist Kasper Norby Lund recites texts from the book.