Borders and Bridges

Abstract

In her photographic series such as Femmes du Maroc and Harem, US-based Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi uses women from the Moroccan diaspora or women from her family as models and restages canonical nineteenth-century European Orientalist paintings. Postures of the original paintings are kept as a vestige of the orientalist gaze and its long-lasting effect in the perception of Arab and Muslim women. However, male characters, Orientalist accoutrements, and lush colours are removed. Nude female characters are doubly veiled, covered with a uniform fabric and with Arabic calligraphy done in henna. Some photographs also deploy the actual architecture of the harem in which the women are embedded, thus creating an unsettling harmony. This article analyses the way in which Essaydi uses the proximity between competing signs and techniques (Western, Oriental, male, female, sacred, profane…) to expose Western obsessions and address issues of gender, confinement, violence, and resistance as related to women in historic...