Ayah
Elgendy
Imagery
Identity and Culture
Self
Portrait
April
26, 2019
A Message from the “Oppressed”
Self-portraiture
has been created and manipulated in all different ways throughout history. I
feel like what makes a self-portrait so special, is that the artist has to be
vulnerable with themselves and with the audience, which is something that isn’t
really easy for everyone. My self-portrait is a video that I made which
includes messages about the religion I practice and how I’ve resonated with it.
At the same time, it is meant to clear up misconceptions about Muslim women
being oppressed because of their hijab (religious headdress). The reason I felt
it was important to my identity to acknowledge the misconceptions is because I
have been wearing hijab since the 5th grade and it’s definitely something
that has influenced many things in my life.
In the video I’m sitting
on Islamic designed prayer rugs and cultural drapery on the beach. The beach is
usually where I’m mostly judged because I’m fully covered in an area that most
people are not. I’m wearing an “abaya”, which is an Arab cultural dress that my
mom, my family and I grew up wearing. The one I’m wearing is one you would
typically wear at home and the one that my sister in wearing the video is one
that you would wear outside. Both styles very in multiple colors and designs. I
chose to wear my specific one because it represents comfort. In the video my
sister is unwrapping me with all the scarfs that I own. They represent
different times, ages, and cultures that influenced me. Some of them are ones
from when I first wore hijab. I start off with black, then it goes into solids,
then patterns and florals, and then ends with my silk hijabs. This transition
represents how women who wear hijab might look like on the outside to their
status in Islam. The silk is a very special cloth in the religion and only
women can wear it, which I feel represents the quality of prestige that women
have in the religion. It represents what I strive to gain in my life. To be just
a respectable human. At the end it reveals me eating French fries because I
feel like if you’re eating French fries, it represents leisure and non-oppression.
It’s also represents a corky, funny side to my personality, that I value a lot
and in others. Throughout the video there’s a quote written by a well-known
Muslim scholar: Yasmine Mogahed. It resonated with me a lot and I felt like it
went with my concept very well and how I feel about my hijab.
My inspirations for the wrapped-up
hijabs was an Instagram photographer named Ismail Zaidy. His images are amazing
the way he treats his models and uses the colors, represents such delicacy and
I love it. Frida Kahlo is just an amazing portrait artist and we aren’t using
the same mediums at all but, she’s just an amazing inspiration for strong women
in art. Boushra Almutawakel is my third influence. She did a “Hijab Series”
which explored textiles and patterns from her culture and it’s beautiful. I
love materials and cloths and seeing her art really resonated with me. Making a
video was inspired by the Charles and Ray Earnes, Powers of Ten. They were able
to show layers of identity and that a similar concept I was going for. It also
made me think differently about our purpose and how big/small we really are. A
reading also inspired me was Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development.
He sates, “personality develops […]through eight stages[…]from infancy through
adulthood”. Which I something that my different scarfs represented. Just the
different stages in my life and what I found beautiful. Like I used to love
floral and I still do, but I tend to where solids mostly now.
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