The photograph Girls in Car (2005) is part of a series of four images in which Aliabadi documented the social phenomenon of evenings spent in the car, characteristic of the young urban middle class in Iran in the 2000s. Theranese youth, limited in socializing with the opposite gender in public space, used car travel as a pretext to interact, causing massive traffic jams on the streets of the north of the city. The photograph, like the others in the series, portrays a group of friends who, dressed and made up as if for an evening out, participate in this sort of remote motorized choreography. Some of the girls smile at Aliabadi's camera, others who are more shy look at her in amazement. In the artist's words "every time my flash went off on the street I attracted a lot of attention. The girls in the car were very curious and we would start a long friendly conversation about why I was taking the photos, what I would do with them, where they would be published, etc. ". The project proposes an intimate and timely reflection on unexpected forms of sociality and on the preconceptions that influence the gaze of most people, especially in the case of contexts that go beyond the Eurocentric norm. "This image of women constrained by tradition and the hijab is nowhere near the reality here. They all had their music on and were chatting to each other between cars, giving glances and conversing with guys in other cars."

In the almost twenty years that separate us from the moment the photos were taken, Aliabadi's work has acquired many levels of complexity, becoming testimony to a precise historical moment within the long and complex history of female emancipation in Iran. Looking at this image today inevitably brings to mind the large protest movement that arose following the death under suspicious circumstances of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the religious police in Theran for incorrect use of the hijab in September 2022. Repressed with violence by the Iranian security forces , the demonstrations were the largest and most consistent in the country since 2009 and attracted great participation from the international community, which joined the Iranian population in protest with the common cry of "woman, life, freedom". A year after those events, faced with a battle for human rights that is still far from over, the billboard wants to act as an echo of Aliabadi's voice, to make forms of narration from yesterday that are fundamental for understanding the complexity of today.