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Education and Family Guide
Lalla Essaydi
Education and Family Guide exploring the work of artist Lalla Essaydi
About
BACKGROUND
“In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses — as artist, as Moroccan, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite viewers to resist stereotypes.”
– Essaydi
Lalla Essaydi is a contemporary American photographer and painter born in Morocco. Creating elaborately staged and layered photographs incorporating traditional Arabic architecture, calligraphy, and henna painting, Essaydi challenges assumptions made about Arab women. The exhibition also explores the lenses through which Westerners view the Middle East, and how that view affects both cultures. The literal and metaphorical layers of Essaydi’s photographs invite reflection as they challenge stereotypes.
Photography, Installation, and Performance in Essaydi’s Work
Essaydi’s photographs are technically impressive. Behind each of her images are weeks of preparation, as the text is composed, the fabrics are dyed to match the setting in which they will appear, and the architectural backdrops are carefully constructed. The almost life-size photographs appear in sharp focus, the result of her use of a large-format camera and traditional film.
Essaydi covers her models, and sometimes their garments and walls, in layers of hand-painted henna calligraphy, subverting traditional Muslim gender stereotypes through the presence of the written word. The sacred Islamic art form of calligraphy, traditionally reserved exclusively for men, is used by Essaydi as a small act of defiance against a culture in which women are relegated to the private sphere. Furthermore, by creating this calligraphy with henna, an art traditionally employed by women for women, Essaydi fully reclaims the female voice. The performative process and the resulting photographs allow Essaydi to push and pull the boundaries between East and West, male and female, past and present.
Lalla Essaydi’s photographs often reappropriate and reclaim Orientalist imagery from the Western painting tradition, inviting viewers to reconsider the Orientalist mythology and male gaze on Arab women. Essaydi carefully stages each photograph, posing her subjects to mimic works by French neoclassical painters such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
“Perhaps by invoking the Orientalist gaze of Western male painters, my work can promote in Western women a greater sense of commonality with their Arab counterparts.”- Essaydi
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