WOMEN OF OURSELVES
Near East paintings were usually in sensual color and, indeed, subject matter. The Orient grew in controversy for its stereotypical depictions of people of color. In these photo series, we want to reclaim our bodies and change this orientalist narrative, focusing on the oriental woman that is more than just her appearance. Just like Baya, the artist, we want to create a world that revolves around the woman that is assertive, intelligent, expressive and not the oriental woman that is incapable of representing herself and is portrayed as a still life.
Harem scenes often showcased exotically garbed women posed atop low couches in languid, still poses. The Other was almost a European invention, a place of their fantasies accompanied by exotic beings covered in exposed decolletage. Images of female bodies with exaggerated spinal curvatures that would be accurate only if the women had several extra vertebrae.
The limitations of Orientalism are limitations that follow upon disregarding and denuding the humanity of another prosperous culture.
While the world tried to fixate these limitations on us, Baya, the collective, disposes us of these limitations by depicting women of ourselves.
I hear their desire
Voluptuous
I am wider than their woman
Submissive
I am wiser than their woman
Fertile
I am desired, just not like their woman
As a wiser woman I grew tired, woman
Tired unto death of their sight on our women
Not a still life of the flesh I am Fluid
Not a sight for other I am moving
I do not appear nor take shape because
I am a wiser woman
The power of their gaze in my hand
Greedy for our women’s words rolled into my skin
I want my women for themselves
So let us
Be
Women of ourselves
By Ibtissam Machkour
No inanimate objects, nor are we, women, still lives of flesh. We are not laying around trying to fulfill your fantasy inside the harem you built around us.
Do not reduce us to something less than what we are when we are so much more.
They made a portrait out of you
When you weren't watching
And named it exotic
They made a portrait out of you
When you were undressing
And named it sensual
They made a portrait out of you
When you were resting
And named it a lifestyle
Never aware of the thing that had caught your interest and full attention
Never aware of the thoughts and dreams beyond the flesh, the nakedness
Never aware of the tired eyes, the rough hands and the restlessness
Do not reduce us to a pathetic still life, without acknowledging the blood running through our veins.
Do not reduce us to something less
when we are so much more.
— Hayat El Khattabi
My tongue is paint
dripping off the edges of the canvas
—I am always where I’m not supposed to be.
I’ve wrecked havoc amongst traditions
Overstepped boundaries like they’re hopscotch tiles
I’ve learnt to be a woman by myself;
to be a woman for and on my own.
Now, my painted lips have learnt to curl
around my no’s as if they’re sugar cubes.
My voice sings the word I on loop
like a hymn, a nation’s anthem.
I find no satisfaction in acknowledgement;
but I do find peace in the way my body moves
knowing it doesn’t have to bend or split itself open
for anyone but itself.
— Dita
Credits
Photography: Latifa Saber
Creative direction: A Baya Production & Ibtissam Machkour
Makeup Artist: Wassima Kobo