Fariba Farshad, Director of Candlestar, and curator of Masques of Shahrzad was invited by the American University in Paris  to give a lecture about women artists in Iran to mark the 100^th anniversary of international women’s day on 8 March. Fariba was raised in Iran and has maintained a fascination with the courage and ingenuity of the artists working in Iran. She has first hand experience of  the difficulties facing independent and ambitious women in Iran. In her talk she highlighted the effects the 1979 revolution had on Iranian art and its standing in the global art world. Her talk comprehensively documents the work and achievements of female Iranian artists, reaching back as far as the 1930s, and giving a strong historical context for contemporary Iranian art.

Her talk featured the work of many female Iranian artists, both young and old such as Monir Farmanfarmaian, Behjat Sadr, Shirin Aliabadi, Mansoureh Hosseini and Shirazeh Houshiary.

‘Made by Women’ included a series of speeches on the subject of women in the arts in both the  Middle East and the West. As well as Fariba, ‘Made by Women featured talks by HH Sheikha Lulu Al-Sabah and Susan Fisher Sterling, who gave an account of the development of the museum of women’s art in Washington