UN / VEILED 2010 - 2011
Amid all the controversy about veils, full body veils and all their
religious, sociocultural and sociosexual implications, I am interested
in the different images of women and the strong emotions they trigger depending
on the cultural background of the viewer.
I staged pictures showing only veiled women in groups, dark pictures
with an air of mystery and complicity. In the other colorful pictures
veiled women are juxtaposed with unveiled "western style"
women, in scenes that could be about conflict or confrontation, but
not necessarily so. The pictures trigger a tension in the viewer, a
tension that, I think, arises from preconceived ideas about what veiled
and unveiled women are standing for, more then from anything actually
seen in the picture...
What I wanted to explore in this series is what we consider to be "the"
normal image of a woman. My cultural background makes me automatically
consider a depiction of a naked woman as more normal, whereas the image
of a veiled one is foreign and therefor always a bit threatening.
But, just how normal is it to be constantly confronted with naked or
semi-naked pictures of the female body modeled after a certain idea
of perfection? Isn´t it just another side of the same attitude
towards women?: On one side the hiding of the female form in order not
to be tempted by it, on the other side the extreme sexualization of
the female figure to satisfy just those tempting desires. Both attitudes
spring from a narrow-minded point of view, and seem to be modeled
after the idea that a woman needs to be controlled and appropriated.
Both attitudes strive towards a uniform image of the female figure and
rob women of their individuality. What is the reason behind this phenomenon?
I used a "typically female" craft to put the dark " Anonymous"
pictures together, the different pieces have been sewed together, the
colorful threads symbolically piecing together the torn attitudes towards
the veiled women. Also the colorful threats give a personality to the
pictures and remind us that under the veils are hidden real woman with
different personalities, they appear to be anonymous but they are not.