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Harem

2009

Chromogenic print

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Les Femmes du Moroc

2008

Chromogenic print

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Harem

2009

Chromogenic print

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Harem Revisited

Chromogenic print

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Les Femmes du Maroc

20 x 24 in

2008

Chromogenic print

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Bullet

Chromogenic print

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Bullets Revisited

2017

Chromogenic print

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Harem Revisited

Chromogenic print

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Bullet

2009

Chromogenic print

40 x 30 in

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                                    Collection 1: Les Femmes du Moroc - 2008

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                                    Collection 1: Les Femmes du Moroc - 2008

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                                                           Collection 2: Harem - 2009

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                                                           Collection 2: Harem - 2009

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My artist is photographer, Lalla Essaydi. Her main choice of medium is photography. Born in 1956, she grew up in Marrakesh, Morrocco lived with her father. Her father was a city leader who had four wives and eleven children, leading her to spend her childhood in her father's harem..When she hit her teen years, she left home and went to L’École des Beaux Arts high school in Paris, France. She then moved to Massachusetts, received her B.F.A. from Tufts, and later her M.F.A. from Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She currently resides in the US in New York. Essaydi believed that to truly capture the truth and purity of her art, she first needed to start with where it all began from the culture of her childhood. She uses her photography to capture these ever-fleeting moments before they are gone forever. She uses her art to show her experience growing up as an Arab woman. Her goal is to educate those about how the Western views of the Eastern Arab culture has caused more constraints to be enforced on Eastern women.

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"I want to stress that I do not intend my work simply as a critique of either culture, Arab or Western. I am going further than mere critique to a more active, even subversive, engagement with cultural patterns, in order to get beyond stereotypes and convey my own experience as an Arab woman. In employing calligraphic writing, I am practicing a sacred Islamic art that is usually inaccessible to women. To apply this writing in henna, an adornment worn and applied only by women, adds a further subversive twist. Thus the henna/calligraphy can be seen as both a veil and as an expressive statement. Yet the two are not so much in opposition as interwoven. The “veil” of decoration and concealment has not been rejected but instead has been integrated with the expressive intention of calligraphy. Although it is calligraphy that is usually associated with “meaning” (as opposed to “mere” decoration), in the visual medium of my photographs, the “veil” of henna in fact enhances the expressivity of the images."

http://lallaessaydi.com/6.html

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"Thus the henna/calligraphy can be seen as both a veil and as an expressive statement.  Yet the two are not so much in opposition as interwoven."

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"Thus the henna/calligraphy can be seen as both a veil and as an expressive statement.  Yet the two are not so much in opposition as interwoven."

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Without directly stating what pieces of art have influenced her artistic vision, Essaydi recalls of calligraphy seen in historical Islamic art (such as mosques, vases and the Qur'an) and the feminine practice of henna she grew up around in her culture.

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Section of a Qur'an Manuscript  Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper 

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Mosaic calligraphy, Jameh Mosque, Isfahan

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Subject Matter                                                                                                       

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Subject Matter                                                                                                       

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In majority of her photographs, the models in the images can be seen with copious amounts of calligraphy littered across their skin, so much so that it appears to be covering them like a second skin. The models are also seen adorned in layers upon layers of long cloths that cover the women’s forms apart from their faces, hands or feet.

The art of Islamic calligraphy is typically seen as male art form that dates to the calligraphies that adorn the historic mosques and arts alike. The calligraphy written on the female models’ bodies is done so with henna. Henna is traditionally done and worn by women of Islamic heritage. Essaydi combines both the masculine conceptions of calligraphy with the feminine conceptions of henna to break the gender stereotypes that have been pushed onto Arab women for so long.

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                         Revisited Collections - 2017

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                         Revisited Collections - 2017

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“Although concealed in willowing, white cotton haiks, they nonetheless engage the viewer directly in their full frontal poses.”

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“Although concealed in willowing, white cotton haiks, they nonetheless engage the viewer directly in their full frontal poses.”

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In order to break stereotypes of Arab women being cast away into the shadows and rarely ever seen or heard, Essaydi poses the woman in Bullets #6 in a more domineering position that causes the model to take up more space in the composition, making their presence known. The Western view of Arab and Muslim women is that they are overly controlled and concealed by their lengthy dress robes and men in their lives, but Essaydi wants to break that image of these women, showing that they still have power in their femininity without having to overly expose themselves. In many of her photographs, the models can be seen wearing lots of gold or beige, surrounded by dangerous items such as bullet casings scattered around the piece. This piece in particular is completely composed of bullet casings that create the flat surfaces we see in the background. The entire wall is only made of bullet casings. This piece in particular stood out to me because of its incredible dynamic contrasts. Here we have this beautiful model with a mask of silence covering her face while she is adorned in gorgeous golden robes, but there are thousands of bullets that surround her.

Aperture 178

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“When the West portrays Eastern women as sexual victims and Eastern men as depraved, the effect is to emasculate Eastern men, and to challenge the traditional values of honor and family. So Arab men feel the need to be even more protective of Arab women, preventing them from being targets of fantasy by veiling them.”

 

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“When the West portrays Eastern women as sexual victims and Eastern men as depraved, the effect is to emasculate Eastern men, and to challenge the traditional values of honor and family. So Arab men feel the need to be even more protective of Arab women, preventing them from being targets of fantasy by veiling them.”

 

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“Disrupting the Odalisque.” World Literature Today 87, no. 2

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In no way is Essaydi condemning Arab culture, she wants to use her art to reclaim the old traditions and show that both “masculine” and “feminine” art can be combined to simply be Islamic art. She wants to show the complexity of female Arab identity and what it means to be an Arab woman. She believes that Arab women deserve to be seen, heard and to be treated as equals. Women do not need to be "submissive" to be deemed as a good woman. The female population has so much potential that has very right to be unleashed and shared with the world.

Essaydi believes that the Western male view of Eastern culture is truly damaged by Orientalism, making them think that the women in harems are nothing but sexual devices readily available for the male consumption at any given moment instead of living, breathing humans with their own thoughts and beliefs. These Western views have also impacted the way Eastern men hold “their” women closer to them in a more controlling manner to conceal them away from the judgmental ideals.

“Borders and Bridges.” Francosphères 2, no. 1

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Her earlier works in 2007 consisted more of beige and tan colors, making the models blend into the background. Moving forward to 2008 and 2009, her work still makes the models blend into the background, but it incorporates more color than she had used in her past works. It’s kind of contradictory, but not in a negative way. She has these models that are supposed to resemble how Arab women have been cast to the back of society, but she makes them stand out by adorning them in these extravagant and colorful robes. Specifically in her #46ab piece from her Harem Revisited 2017 collection, she displays her models in more modern clothes as apposed to beige robes that glue them to their backgrounds. In a way, it shows a slight improvement in the way women are viewed in Arab culture nowadays, but there is still some of the old assumptions that have yet to leave, hence the calligraphic henna remaining on their faces.