Helga Fassonaki: Khal

April 2020, English, 7.75 x 4.75 inches, 110 loose-leaf pages, two cassette tapesEdition of 150Design: Sming Sming BooksCo-published with Drawing Room Records! Khal was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini condemned all forms of music, other than classical and traditional Persian music as being corrupted and influenced by Western culture, and therefore, forbidden. During this time, Khomeini forbade women from singing solo in public because of "the seductive quality of the female voice"—a law which is still in effect today. Helga Fassonaki began the Khal project in 2014 while living in Tabriz, Iran. Because the use of her voice as a woman in public performance was restricted, Fassonaki sent compositions in the form of sculptural scores to sixteen female artists and musicians living in different cities and parts of the world. The scores were interpreted and perform