Brooklyn-based artist Lorna Simpson produces visual works that both isolate and confront conventional views on identity, ethnicity, and history. A majority of her recent work portrays black American women casually posed in standalone scenes or everyday interactions, inviting viewers—herself included—to question what divisions exist between society's past and present.

Lorna Simpson: Gathered, a recent exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum that ended in late August, explored the unknown histories of vintage photographs of black Americans from the 1940s on through the 1950s. In the first part of the Gathered exhibition, Simpson collected fifty unmarked black & white photo-booth shots and combined them with her own abstract ink drawings displayed in cluster on a wall. The collection is called Please remind me of who I am, and though individual identities are unknown, a shared one seems to surface from how the work was displayed at the museum (seen below):

In the second part, Simpson acted as both artist and subject, replicating the poses of an unknown black woman in photographs taken in the late 1950s in Los Angeles. Simpson’s inspiration for the project came very much by accident after spending several months looking at several vintage photographs of this woman, many the artist had posted in her.

What appeals to me about this particular work is that Simpson unknowingly became part of the project over the course of nine months or so before having her Eureka! moment—Simpson was her own subject first, an artist second. Here's a split-image sample from Lorna Simpson: Gathered (that's the artist on the right in 2009).

Of the process, Simpson says:

It took time to figure out, well, what would you do with that as a piece other than it being someone’s archive of a project of performing for the camera? That is a very interesting process to me, not all [my] pieces come about that way […], but certainly when it does work like that it does mean taking a moment to step back and be conscious of the things around you, but also in that engagement there isn’t a timeline of completion. There isn’t a timeline of resolving how things get done, they kind of work themselves out.

Simpson shares more of how Gathered came to be, starting with her buying one or two vintage photos off eBay and then being asked by the seller if she wanted to buy the entire album. She did, at least of the 1957 images, connecting past to present and creating a shared identity between the unknown subject and herself (something she's never done before in her twenty-five plus years as an artist).  

Simpson has used other visual media too, such as film and pencil, ink, and watercolor drawings through her tenure. Starting in the mid '90s, she's explored behavioral and relational topics using enlarged photographs placed on felt. One felt series features the photographed locations of separate undisclosed sexual encounters, accompanied by short narratives or dialogues. The people involved are missing, placing emphasis on what was said and seen, but not with who. Check out Simpson's The Rockand The Staircase.

Wigs and Wigs II, examines the social constructs, stereotypes, and assumptions that surround black hair textures and styles. The entire Wigs portfolio comprises over 50 hair portraits against pieces of cream-colored felt. Simpson spent over ten years exploring these two hair-focused works. Wigs II is seen here without its accompanying text panels:

Simpson’s also worked with video and film and has a selection of her video works on her studio website. Easy to Remember (my favorite), features 15 mouths humming in unison to Rodgers and Hart’s 1935 “It’s Easy to Remember (And So Hard to Forget)” first performed by Bing Crosby in the movie Mississippi. Check out Simpon's Easy to Rememberhere.This particular video work was part of a larger exhibition in the early 2000s that included fifteen large photographic stills of the mouths accompanied with one-line narratives, such as "meaty,""sheer power," and "a voice that darkened with age." My favorite still includes the line, "her vocal chords were overtaken by the sound of her heartbeat." The 15 Mouths photo series is now part of the permanent collection at Studio Museum Harlem (seen below):

Simpson has had a lasting art career and rightly so—through art, she addresses topics that people take for granted, are afraid to broach, or accept as is. Needless to say, her work has been and hopefully will continue to be a catalyst for conversation on perceptions of identity and ethnicity, among others. Last year the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis featured Recollection: Lorna Simpson displaying six selected works spanning Simpson’s 25-year art career. She's covered a lot of visual ground—perhaps the Internet will be her next medium?

Previously: Angela Singer, Ana Benaroya

Her artistic career may have been short—she was taking photos for only nine years of her life—but Francesca Woodman left behind over 800 images when she died in 1981. She commands enough attention, 30 years after her death, to merit a retrospective at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, which will move on to the Guggenheim in 2012. What is the lingering hold that she has over art lovers?

With an abstract painter father, a ceramicist mother and a brother whose medium is film, it’s unsurprising that Woodman turned to art as a means of expression, yet it was not to be her salvation. Woodman, who suffered from depression for years of her life, died at just 22 after jumping from a Manhattan building. She’s one of those figures who achieved true fame and recognition after their death, but her father insists that her work should not be seen as tragic. For the purposes of this post, I want to put it under a feminist lens and identify the ways in which she can serve as an artistic role model for women everywhere, rather than trying to find her faults and foreground her trauma.

[Francesca Woodman, Rome series, 1976]

Woodman’s subject matter was herself, often nude or clothed in wispy dresses or pale shirts that hung off her frame. Most of the images you’ll find from her are in monochrome, which adds gravitas and depth, and picks out the harshness of light in her settings. An early self-portrait aged 13 (when she began picking up the camera) has shards of light appearing to fall from her hands, and she’s hiding in the semi-darkness. Her chunky knitted jumper adds bulk but also conceals her further, adding an extra layer between Woodman and the viewer as she recoils towards the edge of the picture plane. She was to continue experimenting with intimacy and staging throughout her career, using a glass box in the series "Space" and focusing on the hidden in her "Providence, Rhode Island" photographs.

[Francesca Woodman, House #4, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976]

From a feminist perspective, Woodman was exploring issues of identity and visibility with her own body, challenging everyone’s perceptions, including her own. She tried to blend into the background in the Rhode Island shots, taken in dilapidated rooms, and we see her picking up the wallpaper and the furniture to disappear beneath it. She’s in an atmosphere of former domesticity, crawling into the dirty fireplace and relishing the peeling paint; Francesca Woodman is certainly no "angel of the house," (as the Victorians of an earlier era famously perceived women). Neither is her body something to be trussed up in male-approved clothes or to be embellished with make-up. We see her as she wishes to be seen, not as a false presence or a glamorous emblem, and even her nudity feels natural rather than forced, without the obvious goals of a topless model to titillate. Here it’s just about peeling off another layer.

[L: Francesca Woodman, 154 Rome Series, 1975-6. R: Francesca Woodman, Self Portrait Aged 13, 1972-5]

This is by no means militant feminist art, nor perhaps even deliberately political work. As incredibly clichéd as it sounds, this is a personal journey, and it’s one that the viewer can easily become engrossed in. We want to see what she does next, whether she engages further with us or pushes us away, holding us at arm’s length. We can become inspired by Francesca Woodman’s relaxed attitude towards her own body and her endless experimentation with it.

[Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976]

One sad aftereffect of Woodman's death is that her then-boyfriend, Benjamin Moore, owns much of her work. Rather than giving it to her family or keeping it for sentimental value, he regularly sells it or lends it out. Clearly there’s a positive way to view this, that he is trying to keep her art alive, but I cannot help feeling cynical about him making money off of his dead girlfriend. The art writer Will Brand said of the matter that, "Moore’s relationship with Francesca Woodman was clearly a factor in her emotional state," which makes this profiteering all the more uncomfortable. It also seems unfair that such a liberated female figure in life could be controlled by a man after her passing. I would like to see Woodman’s photographs untainted by the influence of Moore, to truly appreciate them.

Whatever you think of her brief career as a photographer, Francesca Woodman has contributed a vast amount to female self-portraiture and her work sets a great example for other artists. It shows us that our bodies are our own, and nobody can tell us otherwise.

Trigger warning for images and discussion of domestic violence.

"There is no separation between me and what I photograph," said the artist Nan Goldin. This has never been truer than with the self-portrait that captures her injuries caused by an abusive boyfriend. Domestic violence is never an easy subject to talk about, but this image speaks volumes.

[Nan Goldin, Nan One Month After Being Battered, 1984]

When Nan Goldin's photo book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, was released, her boyfriend Brian was deeply embarrassed. He didn't want to be identified as the one who had "battered" Nan in the iconic self-portait (taken at her request by Suzanne Fletcher) that depicts her as the victim of domestic violence—the photo is raw and unsettling, but also hard to tear yourself away from. "Nan, One Month After Being Battered" (1984) is a visceral print that is confrontational and may upset some viewers, but it needs to be seen. Goldin didn't name her attacker in the title (though I wish she had), but this image lives on in its own right. Regardless of who committed the crime, we are all witnesses to its effects—we all see the uneven bruising on her face and the blood-red eyeball staring back at us.

This is no Photoshop job, and it might remind many modern viewers of the photos of Rihanna after Chris Brown assaulted her. Rihanna's eyeshadow and neat mascara, applied in preparation for the Grammy Awards, was in contrast to the bloody lip and marks on her forehead. Nan's scene also evokes pain and it's emphasized by her standard photographic technique of heavy flash and strong colors. Her red lips are a strong presence in the shot—carefully applied make-up creates a juxtaposition with unpredictable bruises that change color every day. Nan's lipstick can also be seen as an act of defiance, with the artist saying that she won't hide away whilst her wounds heal. She will face the world.

When asked what she intended for this self-portrait, Nan Goldin said: “I wanted it to be about every man and every relationship and the potential of violence in every relationship.” I'm not sure that "every man" would feel comfortable with this statement, as this suggests that an entire gender is capable of inflicting such injuries, which is an unfair sweeping statement to make. It also implies that only women are the victims, which we know to be untrue, as men are victims of domestic abuse too, and women are abusers sometimes (though statistically this is a male-perpetrated crime). However, generalizations aside, Nan's intentions are admirable; if her self-portrait can speak to people affected by domestic violence then maybe something can be done to inspire people to take action.

[Nan Goldin, Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983]

Although we can't see the mental effects of Brian's actions on Nan in "Nan and Brian in Bed," we do know that he read her diaries, which indicates his lack of respect for her. The nature of Nan's art has always been very personal, but she chose what she wanted to tell us, using her photographs as a form of a journal. Brian's reading of her private content crossed the line between what Nan wanted everyone to see and what she created purely for herself. As a result, Nan stepped the other way and brought Brian's private act into the public domain.

As uncomfortable as this image is, I'm glad that Nan turned her attack into something proactive. Art has been a vehicle for her to talk to the public about this controversial and personal topic. She's confronted the violence and shown its effects. The abuser's often-used excuses of "It was an accident" or "It won't happen again" are challenged here. It won't happen again because we will seek help and work to put an end to the cycle of violence.

Related Posts:Q and Not A: Chris Brown's Arrest, Bitch Radio: Gender Violence and Pop Culture with Rachel Griffin and Josh Phillips

Previously:Ingrid Berthon Moine: Lipstick and Looking Twice, Francesca Woodman's Self-Portrait Legacy

Together, Andrea Blood and Zoe Sinclair are known as The Girls—an artistic partnership that has revolved around intense tableaux self-portraits, live performances, videos and installations. Along with exhibiting regularly in the UK, they’ve shown at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and Milan’s UNO+UNO. Whether they’re taking on recognizable people and reimagining them, or creating entirely new and vibrant characters, you’re sure to be drawn in.

I volunteered as a contributor during their 2010 project, The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo Story, which took place inside the London department store Selfridges, and it saw a basement space transformed into a working office and participatory installation where they produced several issues of their own magazine. This paid tribute to the golden age of publications for teens and children, with problem pages, photo stories and craft articles. They went on to create similar live studio experiences in a shopping mall and in London’s Tate Britain.

I wanted to quiz The Girls about their most controversial pieces, their future projects, and how feminism fits into the picture.

[The Girls, William and Harry].

How long does it take (on average) to prepare for one of your tableaux?

Andrea: That really depends on what we’re doing. Sometimes it could be a matter of days and at other times, weeks!

Do you prefer representing invented characters or real figures (such as your portrait of Prince William and Prince Harry)?

A: There are pluses and minuses of doing both; it’s fun to create an instantly recognizable figure and play with that, but on the other hand an invented character allows so much more creative freedom.

[The Girls, JonBenet Portrait and Myra Hindley Portrait].

I particularly love your controversial portraits of JonBenet Ramsay (the child beauty pageant winner murdered in 1996) and Myra Hindley (murderess, whose police mug shot is chilling and famous in its own right). Was it difficult to move into a more morbid theme, or was it something you felt you had to do? And what kind of reaction did you get for both of these images?

A: It was not difficult at all. And if anything that natural urge to make things a little darker and less comfortable than what they could be was one of the fundamental reasons we became friends and collaborators when this all began. When the Myra Hindley piece was shown in Selfridges Ultralounge 2010 it caused quite a stir and we had several complaints. One woman in particular complained every day. However I took the time with her to explain our reasons behind that piece and the pieces like JonBenet and she came away with a completely different perspective and was quite supportive.

Z: Being morbid has always come easily to us!

[Zoe and Andrea, a.k.a. The Girls, at work on The Paper Eaters Magazine in Selfridges, 2010. Photo by Helen Jermyn].

In light of The Paper Eaters project and its references to teen magazines from the '80s, do you think that girls grow up too quickly today and they don’t have the innocence of previous generations, or are we all just worrying too much, Daily Mail-style? [The Daily Mail is a British newspaper which has frequently been accused of scare-mongering tactics to generate headlines].

A: I think the worry is completely justified and the subject doesn’t get enough media attention. We need more in depth exposure and analysis from some harder hitting editorials rather than the sensational lip service granted by The Daily Mail and co. It’s a subject that we both feel very strongly about and anything we can do to raise awareness or help towards an actual positive change would be welcomed by us.

Z: This is a massive, real concern to us. I think Caitlin Moran highlighted it well in her recent book How to be a Woman—some teenage boys are horrified when teenage girls don’t wax their pubic hair off. This is due to the prevalence of porn. What an awful start this would be to your sex life, this ridiculous and eerie expectation!

At my all girls grammar school, in the 1990’s, we were taught NOTHING about: female orgasm, the clitoris, the emotional aspects of sex, how to assert yourself in a sexual relationship, date rape, or where to get an abortion. I wonder how much has changed in the classroom? At the UK Feminista FEM 11 conference in London in November we heard worrying stories about how a tiny minority of right-wing parents can block schools from being able to give teenagers this kind of information.

How has being feminists affected your art—do you find yourself consciously trying to break down barriers, or can you separate being a feminist from being an artist?

A: I don’t perceive there to be any barriers in place for us based on our gender alone. I do feel that we have a platform to raise feminist issues that we feel passionately about and doing that through art and humour is effective and appealing. As an artist you concentrate on subjects that interest you, so there is a feminist theme throughout a lot of our work. It’s hard to say when this became a conscious action as it's a lot to do with how we’ve been brought up, and subjects that affect us on a personal level as much as them universally affecting women.

Do you think that mainstream art will always be controlled by men and the male gaze, or are we experiencing a shift towards equality?

A: There’s still a long way to go before equality across the board is reached, but at the same time things have never been better for female artists and art; that’s something to be grateful for. I think it’s up to the female artists of today to make space for themselves and make themselves heard.

Z: As more and more women artists are able to have more time to devote themselves to their practice, we will see growing numbers of women rising to the top.

["Nyotaimori, Vicar?" The Garden Party performance by The Girls]

Which other artists inspire you?

Z: Grayson Perry—for making the world a more interesting place, for his humour and openness, and the way he has dealt with the snobbery of the art world.

A: The world wouldn’t be the same without Yayoi Kusama either. We’re looking forward to her show at Tate Modern in 2012.

What advice would you give to female artists who are just starting out?

A: Just the same advice as I’d give to any artist: hone your craft, don’t settle for anything less than excellence, don’t make excuses, and work hard.

Z: Think carefully about how you will support yourself alongside your practice. Choose your romantic partner very carefully! Look after your mental health as well as your physical health. Avoid discussing your practice with anyone who continually makes you feel inadequate.

What can we expect to see from The Girls in 2012?

A & Z: We’re busy in the planning stages of some new work right now, so you can expect to see the result of that in the summer of 2012.

Previously:Votes for Women and Tackling the 1%, Art Therapy

There are loads of photographers who take the body as their subject matter—hey, it's nothing new. But the women in this post made a point of portraying the body as something to be celebrated and combined with fashion, sociological thinking, or mythology. It's so much more than just snapping a photo.

Universal Dreams: Sam Taylor-Wood's Escape Artist

[Escape Artist, 2008]

Not just a photographer but also a prolific filmmaker, Sam Taylor-Wood has often used herself as the guinea pig for her experiments with mid-air suspension. Escape Artist is a brilliant example because it can be interpreted in many different ways—we see a woman frozen in time, with balloons tied to her hands and feet. Is she escaping or just thinking about getting away? Are we seeing her reality or what she longs to do? Without seeing her facial expression, it's hard to tell whether she's awake, asleep, dead, or knocked unconscious, so this act of freedom becomes more sinister. On a lighter note, seeing this image since the release of the children's film Up made me think of its plot, with the house moved by thousands of balloons on an adventure, which obviously gives Taylor-Wood's image the potential for childlike charm, talking about those hidden dreams we all keep inside us. After all, there are few of us who have never wished we could fly. 

Myths and Legends Brought to Life: Julia Margaret Cameron's Circe

[L-R: Circe, circa 1865; At the Tomb, 1870]

She never planned to become a photographer—in fact, the medium wasn't invented until she was middle-aged—but Julia Margaret Cameron's hobby soon became her passion and she ended up working at a studio within the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her images of goddesses and legendary characters were posed by her servants or relatives and they all have a beautiful soft focus that makes them seem ethereal. The photographer rejected the precise sharp focus that her contemporaries used, which was very daring at the time, and she gave us exposures that are truly beautiful.

Making a Point: Linder Sterling

[Collages by Linder Sterling, dates unknown]

Sterling is known for hiding the identity of her subjects. The fashion designer Richard Nicoll praised her for having such a "strong, subversive female perspective," and you can see where he was coming from when you look at her work. There's a cut-and-paste collage element to her censoring of people's faces that feels like vandalism, but it also can be seen as protective. By keeping someone's identity a secret, there is a distance between the image and the viewer which cannot be breached. It's also tempting to think that the women in question could be anyone—your mother, your sister, your daughter—which changes the way that men might think about exploitative photographs, instead of consuming them so readily.

Exploring Islamic Femininity: Shirin Neshat's Women of Allah

[Images from Women of Allah series, 1993-1997]

A visual artist who works with video and photography, Shirin Neshat is a staple in modern art history textbooks here in Britain. She lives in New York but frequently focuses on her Iranian heritage, though she refuses to make "parallels between two cultures," preferring to look at either Western or Middle Eastern influences individually. Women of Allah is a chance for her to engage with Iranian values and the divide between males and females, as well as the line between loving God and bearing weapons, which becomes more blurred when "devotion brings violence with it." Religious fundamentalism is still a pressing issue in today's society across all cultures, years after this series was created, and Neshat's images can help viewers to try and untangle the problem.

Fashionable People: Deborah Turbeville

[Rosana, Parco, Paris, date unknown]

Turbeville blurs the lines between fashion and art in her images, which are sumptuous but also ultimately advertise products. Taking one of her photographs as a piece of art is all too easy when you look at her storytelling potential, carefully directing tableaux scenes and creating a narrative that feels too exciting to just be about commercial appeal. For me, that's the value of great fashion photography: You could stick it on your wall and it would be a great piece in its own right (especially if there's not a brand name in sight). There's a fragility to her female figures which doesn't feel dangerous, just honest, whether it's a shot that mimics daily life or something a little more fantastical. We get to see women as women intended.

There are plenty of other female photographers to check out—I've mentioned Francesca Woodman, Ingrid Berthon-Moine and Nan Goldin previously in my blog series, and of course there are countless others that I didn't have the space to write about—but these five stood out for me. They might not all call themselves feminists, but their work can speak to us about feminist issues.

For me, art isn't just about finding something pretty or intelligent, or wishing I could paint as well as someone else. It's about looking at a piece and knowing that it's taught you something and you feel better for having seen it. You understand the world a little better afterwards, and you can't wait to rave about it to your friends. Here are three lessons I've learned from artists that I'd like to pass on:

It’s My Body– Marina Abramović takes it to the limit

[Still from Marina Abramović, Rhythm 4, 1974].

[Stills from Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, 1975].

Let’s face it; performance art was always going to be a little bit about showing off. The artist is acting, giving us a character or a side of themselves that was desperate to be seen. Marina Abramović is what we’d call a "Marmite" person in the UK—you either love her or you hate her, like Marmite spread—and you’ll find that there aren’t many people who sit on the fence regarding this kind of art. Some of it seems like Jackass outtakes, such as the piece where she sits naked in front of a hairdryer and waits for the air to make her pass out, or the time she sat in the middle of a burning cross lost consciousness. You might think both of those are examples of great bodily experiments or signs that women can make their mark in the art world. Personally I wasn’t that impressed by either, but there was one performance that caught my attention for the right reasons. Rhythm 5, or "Art must be beautiful," is a short video in which Abramović castigates herself and chants: “Art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful,” continuously whilst brushing her hair wildly. There’s a strong sense of ritual and purpose which is engaging, but also there can be a dual meaning in the art and artist’s need to be "beautiful." Is this a demand from the artist or from the public? Whose expectations must Abramović live up to? This piece says a lot about the public’s demands as well as the personal demands we place upon ourselves in our desire for perfection.

We’re All Mortal – Sally Mann deals with death

[Photographs from Sally Mann's series, Body Farm, 2000-2001].

One of the best exhibitions I ever saw was Sally Mann: the Family and the Land at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. It was one of those shows that came with a warning about the sensitive material that lay inside, which could be pretty disturbing stuff, but I was more excited than unnerved. Mann took photographs in a scientific body farm at Knoxville, Tennessee, where corpses left to medical science are given different conditions in which to decompose and the results are recorded. The massively important work that this research facility conducts (thanks to Dr. Bill Bass) will ensure that more murders are solved as we continue to learn about the effects and variables of heat, cold, rain, and indoor or outdoor sites on the body.

Sally Mann chose to photograph these subjects as part of a book called What Remains, which dealt with mortality in different forms, from the death of her dog to a fatal accident that occurred close to where she lived. The images from the body farm added weight to these situations and they are more beautiful than ugly or scary. Mann often uses old-fashioned photographic techniques to make her exposures look dated, but she really emphasized it here with rips, blots and blurs. The shots themselves seem to be decaying and diminishing beneath our eyes. I know it’s not exactly an attractive prospect, seeing what we look like once we’re dead, but it’s something I believe we shouldn’t hide from. Death is unalterable and we’ll all face it, but if there’s a way of normalizing the process and making it more acceptable then I think we should celebrate it. I really hope that Mann returns to this subject in the future.

Sometimes Words Are Enough– Fiona Banner gives an alternative view of life drawing

[Fiona Banner, Nude 2, 2004].

[Fiona Banner, Superhuman Nude, 2011, part of the 2012 Olympics poster series].

Textual artist Fiona Banner writes long and detailed observational notes from studies of bodies, whether they are life models, adult film actresses, or Vietnam War film characters. Her work feels incredibly intimate without being as exploitative as some of the situations she depicts—essentially you’re getting subtitles without seeing the original picture. Some of it is crude, but most of the language is matter-of-fact and it works well. We meet a woman whose face "looks stretched,""wrinkles under her eyes" and with "colors bleeding through her thin skin" in Nude (2002). Nude 2 contains a similar visual onslaught of text, but this time in a long, triangular column. Whatever form her words take, their capital letters and large, spiky writing is really arresting. The use of text is inventive because it causes us to think about images in a different way, and examine how easily we can create a mental picture without having a physical one on hand. Words can be incredibly powerful and sometimes we forget how important they are.

Are there any artists that have changed the way you think about life, or even death? As ever, I'm open to suggestion, so if you've found a piece that's made sense of your world then please share it with Bitch readers below!

Previously:Female Photographers Telling Stories, Giant Spiders and Stuffed Birds

I can't believe it's the end of my guest blog series already. Looking at he theme of art and feminism has raised loads of questions and also given lots of answers. We've explored artists who use hair and those who've experienced domestic violence, the woman who got a vaginal Damien Hirst tattoo, and the countless murdered and attacked females in Juarez, Mexico, who have been immortalized through the exhibition 400 Women. It's powerful stuff...

When I began this series I explained that I wanted to challenge the lack of female artists in galleries, and I hope that I've some of the talent out there that still needs to be seen. It's not good enough just to produce a token "Women's Exhibition" and segregate us in our own special category; we don't need to be put in a box like that. We need genuine integration into the mainstream art world. The struggle is even harder for non-white female creatives, who find themselves further marginalized. The only sort of categories we should be using in the art industry are those of medium (painting, drawing), movement (Dada, Cubism, Harlem Renaissance) or age (pre-Raphaelite, post-war, etc.).

During the series we've looked at artists in fiction and how their creativity is central to their characters, and we've also dwelt on the shock of the real. I showed you great feminist moments such as Valie Export's feminist manifesto and the iconic artwork that was produced by John Holmes for The Female Eunuch. You got a bit of a history lesson with the stories of Artemisia Gentileschi (my heroine) and the more recent work of Francesca Woodman, who has left a photographic legacy. We also touched on how women's rights are linked to art with the Votes For Women campaign and the visual work of the Guerrilla Girls. I hope that you found them inspiring and they made you want to see more!

I'd like to leave you with a plan of action. If you liked some of what you read, or you just feel like you want to be proactive regarding art and feminism, then here are a few suggestions for what to do next:

1. Promote feminist art as much as possible, and call for more visibility of women artists in your local galleries and museums. Champion the ones that strike a chord with you. Blog about them, Tweet about them, drag your friends kicking and screaming to the exhibitions if you have to.

2. Don't forget that feminists aren't always women. Look out for feminist themes in all art, not just work done by women. John Holmes made one of the most famous feminist images in the world, but obviously he is not the only man to cast women in a positive light.

3. Get creative. Whether you want to express yourself, or you happen to know someone who could do with an outlet for their emotions, give art a try. Art therapy has proven results and you'll also find that art classes are a great way to meet people and make new friends. It's cheap, easy and can be quite fun (unless you'd prefer to be a "frustrated artist" who lives in a garrett and wears a smock and beret—it's your choice).

4. You don't have to go to art college to be an artist. I found that my university tutors weren't overly helpful, but it was my teacher at 16 who really inspired me to go out and make more art. Perhaps formal artistic training wasn't for me, but there are plenty of other avenues you can explore—sell things on Etsy, show your work on Deviant Art, provide commercial stock photography on Shutterstock, promote your images on Flickr, set up a Tumblr account and use it as your sketchbook.

Thanks for reading this guest blog and I really hope you've found it useful. Remember to keep adding any female gallery or museum directors to our Bitch list and keep a look out for women in the art world. We're a force to be reckoned with!

Previously:Life, Death, and Other Lessons Learned from Art, Art Recommended by Bitch Readers

Translady Fanzine is a fine art photographic periodical, that in its first issue, features high-gloss portraits of video and performance artist Zackary Drucker. Amos Mac, editor and founder of the trans male quarterly Original Plumbing, is both photographer and publisher. Photographs are taken from the collaborative series "Distance is Where the Heart Is/Home is Where You Hang Your Heart" documenting a visual memoir of Drucker's early life in locations shot in and around her family's home in Upstate New York. Drucker writes in TF: "How can we have fans if we don't exist? How do we know we exist without visual affirmation?"     

In December 2010, the artists spent a weekend snowed-in, staying up late drinking coffee and black tea, composing photographs that would later appear in the 9 x 13" pages of Translady Fanzine, ranging in tone and content from, PHOTO: near a snow covered graveyard, Drucker stands off to the side like a stray mourner to, PHOTO: Drucker in her underwear with hands and knees on a doily on top of her parents dining room table. A trained photographer herself, Drucker uses her own image as the centre of her work, often collaborating with other artists, such as Manuel Vason,  as in the photograph below entitled, "Don't Look at Me Like That"on display in Los Angeles earlier this month.

While shopping in an adult store in the West Village, Mac stumbled upon the 1990s magazine Transsexual Illusion, inspiring the creation of Translady Fanzine after the photo series was complete. In Transsexual Illusion, images are taken by and of trans women, and even though Mac IDs as a trans man, he felt a kinship with the work. At first, Translady Fanzine appears to be Mac's trans female counterpoint to the trans male quarterly Original Plumbing. Yet, OP is "a community-based magazine that is designed to feature and create visibility for trans guys by trans guys." Why, I wonder, is Translady Fanzine claiming within its self-explanatory title to be about trans women, but unlike OP and TI, does not use a trans woman photographer and/or publisher?

A photograph of Zackary Drucker and Amos Mac from Mac's Tumblr not shown in Translady Fanzine.

Drucker, in a letter to Mac (published in TF) provides a few possible answers: “Trans women have yet to redefine themselves as a vital unified community, and our visibility is in dire need of reinvention.” In a review of TF by Michelle Tea for Huffington Post, Tea explains that Translady Fanzine is not attempting to represent the range of trans female culture, but rather showcase the words and image of one woman of trans experience per issue (Drucker's writing takes up 2 out of 23 pages). Simply put: it is a fanzine not for and made by trans women, but for and made in collaboration with trans women and their fans. Drucker writes:

We need more fans because we live with barriers intact, because we are evolving faster than our culture can perceive, because shame is a scavenger bitch eating us from the inside out, because we are beautiful survivors and we deserve it.

What is perhaps radical about Translady Fanzine is not altogether obvious when observed from a queer/feminist cultural viewpoint. The production quality and traditional beauty of Drucker could land many of the photos in a mainstream high-fashion magazine...and what isn't radical about that? They are images of one contemporary trans woman that allow her and the viewer to transcend the common narrative associated with her trans experience.  

For more information on Translady Fanzine and to order a limited-edition copy, visit: http://www.transladyfanzine.com

Previously: Coco Riot, Eve Arnold

 If you are looking for a new queer photo zine to brighten up your day, look no further than #1 Must Have. Just on its second issue, this new Seattle-based zine captures queer folks through "visibility, celebrating diverse queer people, and re-framing the queer experiences outside of the victim paradigm often seen in popular culture." While many aspects of mainstream queer culture focus on the vicitimization and oppression of queer folks, (don't get me wrong this is much needed!), this zine's aim is to depict queer life from a different perspective to show that, unlike what some heterosexist folks might believe, some people really enjoy their lives as queer! And, shockingly, are happy with their identities! 

#1 Must Have has a blog, a facebook page, and is available in hardcover. The website draws you in with its montage of different images of queer individuals (and some couples) doing things like riding bikes, reading books, or giving their partner a piggy-back ride. Overall, it's a great blend of both artistry in photography and the feel-good-ness of seeing unique and happy people just living in the world. With so many images reminding us of how difficult life can be for the LGBTQ, isn't it refreshing to be reminded with images of how positive and unique queer life can be as well? 

Previously: Translady Fanzine, Coco Riot

Positive representations of PWDs (People with disabilities) are hard to come by. Pitiful, gloomy loners or the excessively plucky supercrip“overcoming” a disability to inspire nondisabled counterparts are de rigueur in the media’s unrealistic portrayals of the disability experience. Attempting to find reasonably authentic TV/film characters with disabilities is a challenging and alienating task—one that often leaves me staring at my screen, exasperated, wondering, “Why doesn’t anyone ever look/act like me?!” Invisibility is a bummer, y’all. Luckily for me and other dissatisfied crips, badass lawyer-turned-sexologist Bethany Stevens started a "visual culture" campaign via facebook called “This Is What Disability Looks Like” that shines a light on the real disabled existence. Simple yet genius, people with disabilities submit a personal photo to disabilitylookslike[at]gmail.com, text is added to the photo, it’s posted on facebook to adoring fans and voilà! Genuine, real representations of disability highlighting the beautiful diversity found in our community(s). I checked in with Bethany (the seductive wheelchair user pictured on your left) to find out more about this rad campaign, which you can find and "like" on facebook here. 

Out of prurient curiosity, how'd you become a sexologist?

Mmmmhmmm, I do love prurient interests—clearly a main driving thrust toward sexology. I become a sexologist by switching my focus from law to sexuality. After finishing law school I joined a master’s program in Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. I took and passed the California Bar Exam during grad school thinking I would stay in California as a lawyer. I could not find a job that fit me, and a mentor encouraged me to join the Center for Excellence for Sexual Health at Morehouse School of Medicine, so I did. What made me want to be a sexologist? The desire and gift to talk about sexuality comfortably. There is so much shame and silence around something that is a really beautiful and natural part of life, especially in the disability communities. The disability communities and the world, generally, really needs a sexual revolution—breaking from normativity—between our ears and legs.

What was the motivation for starting "This Is What Disability Looks Like"?

I could tell you something fabulous about this being a deeply premeditated plan spurred by desire to critique the proliferation of inspirational porn (i.e., using disability as an inspirational marker; rendering PWDs (People with disabilities) objects rather than subjects). But I can't—it was truly spurred by my wife adding text to a photo that was taken of a krip friend and I. It was well received by folks in disability communities, so I thought I should explore what the idea could do in a broader format. I started a Facebook page, sent a call out for photos, and encouraged people to spread the word. Photos poured in and have not all been posted because it is just me adding text to photos and posting them. It's a shame responsibilities get in the way of making this project bigger but perhaps there is something to slowly providing tastes to people, so they stay hungry and wanting more. 

How do you decide which photos to include? What do you consider positive representation of people with disabilities? 

All photos submitted will be included in the project, unless folks change their minds. Again this is a solo project, so it's taking time to sift through them and add text. Positive representations of disability are subjective and changing, so it depends on where you sit/stand/wobble/lay/etc. Right now, "This is What Disability Looks Like" posts photos sent in by people in the disability communities reflecting what we think is positive representation. For me, positive representations of disability are complex and difficult to truly describe, but the question of a positive image drives all of these meme projects. Surely, people think the inspirational movement is positive because inspiration counters dominant notions of pity and fear. I have been told by some I am creating inspirational porn in a different form by showing images that are too queer, too sexuality provocative, and too fabulous—but I am sharing what people are sending me. I find it amusing how much people read queerness into these photos, perhaps because they are not presented as heterosexual pairs. So the question of positive representation is subjective but may not really be the point of this project. "This is What Disability Looks Like" is trying to show a nuanced presentation of disability, rather than the small boxes we are so often shoved into.

 People are REALLY excited about this project, myself included. Have you been surprised by the response?

It is awesome to know folks REALLY dig the project! I am actually surprised to see how quickly it blew up, along with how much people wanted to teach the work and write about it in various magazines. As far as I know, it has been taught in at least three disability studies courses in the US, written about in three magazines, featured in a mobile mural project in Toronto, and soon will be a part of Robert McRuer's many talks abroad. It's so wild that this all started with text on a photo—clearly, people are bloody hungry for images of disabled people that are glimpses of our real lives, not just flattened boring stereotypes of what we are supposed to be. I know I am tired of images of disabled folks that are supposed to inspire or incite fear; I want to see my friends, my culture, and my kripsexxxyfab self in disability representation!

Thanks to Bethany for talking to us. Photo of Bethany and Robin by Stan Bowman. Check out "This is What Disability Looks Like" on Facebook.

Previously:Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk With Me, Ready, Willing, and Disabled

At the beginning of the Finding Vivian Maier, numerous friends, relatives, and former employers of the recently discovered Chicago street photographer and nanny try to describe her succinctly: she’s eccentric, bold, private, paradoxical. Above all, say friends, if she were alive, she would never have allowed this cinematic exposition of her life.  

By the end of the documentary, from directors John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, we still don’t know much more about the mysterious Maier than those surface descriptions. But we also know her work—and her work speaks for itself. Her candid photos of mid-century city street scenes are incredible. 

All photos by Vivian Maier. 

For decades, Maier worked as a nanny around the Midwest and New York. As she led children on outings around their hometowns, she always carried a Rolleiflex camera around her neck, snapping photos of workers, kids, police, and trashcans alike. She was essentially a self-employed journalist of the era and once described herself to a stranger as a “sort of a spy”; she was fiercely protective of her privacy, often giving out fake names. Over the course of her life taking care of kids and constantly shooting photos, she amassed over 100,000 negatives and undeveloped film rolls, which she piled in towering boxes that filled her small quarters. She never showed her photos to a soul. When she died in 2009, John Maloof unwittingly bought her life’s work at a storage unit auction. Once he saw what he’d stumbled upon, Maloof set out to uncover this photographer’s life and get her mainstream attention and respect. 

Part of why Vivian Maier was seen as such an enigma in life is because she boldly flouted gender norms: she lived on the edge of society, poked her camera even further into its fringes, and apparently had little desire to fit in. People immediately saw her as a bit of an oddball for being a woman who lived the life of a loner; she had no apparent interest in romance or bearing children of her own.  Maier was anti-social by nature, preferring to work on her art alone, and was a cynic. Her photos show an acute alertness to everyday human tragedy and one of her employers said Maier loved news stories that “revealed the folly of humanity.” These traits might not be as noteworthy in a man, but for a woman working as a nanny, people saw her as downright bizarre. It’s clear that she became more and more of an outsider later in life as she dealt with mental illness—it seems likely she was a hoarder, as an employer recalls how she stored so many stacks and stacks of newspaper in her room that they left only a small pathway of floor. 

One aspect of Maier’s life that the film’s interviewees struggle to explain is why she continued to work as a nanny her entire life. Director Maloof—an enthusiastic biographer who appears so frequently in the film that his commentary becomes rather grating—often notes how shocking it is that a nanny could have such creative talent and wonders why someone who could have likely gained wide commercial success would continue to work as a humble caretaker. As a neighbor reflects, “It must have been galling to be a maid.” But that perspective is rooted in the notion that being a nanny is inherently terrible work. By all accounts, it seems that Maier liked her chosen profession. She worked for some time in a factory, but switched to being a nanny because the job gave her the chance to be outside and explore the world with her camera around her neck.  Though our society does not respect childcare workers on the same level as people with glamorous artistic careers, Maier was never one for glamour—and she certainly appreciated the economic stability of her job. Toward the end of the film, an observant former charge seems to sum up Maier best: “She was supposed to be downtrodden, but she didn’t have these standards of success that other people had. She lived the life she wanted.”

Though Maier herself would have hated it, the film about her life and work is engaging from beginning to end. Finding Vivian Maier never does not reveal much about the inner life of the woman at the center of the story, but it does a solid job of its more important mission: bringing Maier’s rarely seen work to light.  

Watch the trailer for Finding Vivian Maier: 

Want the best of Bitch in your inbox? Sign up for our free weekly reader!

I associate the phrase “Live Through This” with Hole’s 1994 album of the same name—itself a nod to Vivien Leigh’s Gone With The Wind monologue, or perhaps Courtney Love’s own tumultuous coming of age. New York-based photographer Dese’Rae L. Stage (above) sees it instead as a mantra for those who have survived suicide attempts. In a way, “Live Through This” is a dare.

Stage’s Live Through This project is a collection of portraits and stories of suicide attempt survivors, as told by those survivors. The ongoing portrait series is currently showcased as a web gallery, where a text snippet of each survivor’s attempt narrative accompanies their photo. “When paired in this way, the portraits and stories work to de-stigmatize suicide as a topic unworthy of everyday dialogue,” says Stage, via email. “And to serve as proof of life on the other side of a suicide attempt.”

The portraits are stark and sincere. Each subject looks straight into the lens, forcing the viewer to make eye contact, and to connect. Participants range in age, ethnicity, and background, not to mention their wildly diverse experiences with suicide. To some, the experience is still fresh and resounding. “Do you feel like you’re healed?” Stage asks subject Dominick Quagliata (below). “Not at all. Not in the least,” he says. “I could hit that point again where I felt hopeless...That is the one feeling that you feel is a sense of hopelessness and a sense of emptiness, that there’s a cup that can’t be filled, that there’s a hole within you that can’t be plugged back up.”

To others, it is a moment in the distant past that inevitably pivoted their lives. “The thing about the mentally ill is [that] I had never been familiar with that community until I was diagnosed and went into the hospital and realized that this is an incredibly vulnerable community that is so silent and is not some tiny minority of people,” writes Melody Moezzi, a 34-year-old Iranian-American lawyer and human rights activists who attempted suicide at twenty-five. “It’s not some tiny minority of people, but they’re so fucking quiet about it, and that was the thing that really pissed me off when I went into the hospital and realized that.”

Stage began the project in 2011, but her story begins in 2006, after her own suicide attempt. Between college and grad school, Stage found herself  depressed, trying to maintain a job and trudging through the end of an abusive relationship. “I was trying to do it all without betraying the fact that I was not okay,” she recently wrote on xoJane. “I was suicidal.”

After a rather disillusioning hospital stay following her attempt, Stage got back on her feet and enrolled in a psychology PhD program. She wanted to focus her studies on suicide, but found most professors were less-than-thrilled about her pursuing that specific facet of psychology. She eventually left the program to pursue a successful career as a music photographer, but still felt the need to advocate for suicide awareness—especially for the huge and silent demographic of suicide attempt survivors.

“I Googled ‘suicide survivor’ and I kept finding ‘loss survivors’—those who have survived the suicide of a loved one,” she tells me. “I was like, I know I’m not the only one who has done this.”

Two portraits of suicide survivors from Live Through This. 

Nearly 485,000 Americans visited hospitals for injuries due to self-harm in 2012, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control. That means for every person who ends his or her life, there’s potentially 12 people who attempt and survive suicide. “We are not able to distinguish intentional suicide attempts from non-intentional self-harm behaviors,” writes the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “But we know that many suicide attempts go unreported or untreated, and surveys suggest that at least one million people in the U.S. each year engage in intentionally inflicted self-harm.”

Live Through This is an artistic endeavor that gives suicide attempt survivors a voice. Above all, Stage wants the project to communicate a truthful representation of that experience. “I want it to be positive, but I also want it to be honest,” she says. “That means taking responsibility, acknowledging what you’ve done, showing your face, using your name, telling your story and saying, hey, I still struggle with this.”

Stage initially searched for subjects on (where else?) Craigslist. Once she had found some people willing to tell their stories of surviving suicide, she began the process of interviewing and photographing.  She asks each subject to share the events leading up to their attempt, as well as those that followed, with the disclaimer that they should only share what they’re comfortable sharing. It helps that her self-portrait is among the first visitors see in the Live Through This web gallery. “Everybody knows that I’m a survivor, and I think that gives me a special kind of access. They know the moment they sit down that I’m not going to be like, well, why the hell did you do that?”

She also insists that each subject is at least a year out from their most recent suicide attempt: “You need time to have perspective on that [experience], and it’s not going to come in a week.”

The survivors’ stories are sometimes monologues, sometimes conversations, and always genuine and humble. “Most people don’t think their stories are interesting,” she says. “But I just feel like all of these experiences are valid.”

After taking 88 portraits and running a successful Kickstarter campaign to expand the project, Stage no longer needs to seek subjects—they come to her. She now travels the country photographing attempt survivors and sharing their stories. She has also recently partnered with the American Association of Suicidology as a member of the Lived Experience Division of their Speakers Bureau. Because of her work, and the work of other advocates, the American Association of Suicidology has recently established a new (and very necessary) division of their organization dedicated to suicide attempt survivors.

These developments are hugely important in the effort to encourage a more open dialogue about suicide, which in turn has the potential to save many lives. Suicide has long been considered a taboo topic, and while advocacy has come a long way in the last couple decades, there is still a fair amount of stigma attached to suicide, and to mental health issues in particular. The myth that talking about suicide will normalize it, or put ideas into people’s heads, is nothing short of pervasive.

“It’s less that you talk about it and more how you talk about it,” says Stage. “I’m not trying to normalize suicide; I’m trying to normalize the idea that these thoughts can happen to anybody.”

Want the best of Bitch in your inbox? Sign up for our free weekly reader!

For over 20 years, artist Jennifer Bermon has been getting women to look at themselves. Since 1993, Bermon has taken black-and-white photos of women and asked them to write about the way they look in the photo. Twenty-eight of the portraits are up in an exhibition called Her | Self running through April 4 at dnj gallery in Santa Monica. “Her│Self presents body image in a new light,” writes Bermon. “The woman's photo and her words become one piece that stands on its own, with no editing and filtering.” The collection of photos includes portraits of a NASA scientist, a farmer, and an Academy-Award winning screenwriter, among many others.

Bermon gave us permission to publish several of the photos and stories from the exhibit. A transcript of each written story is underneath each photo. You can also see some of the photos on the project's Facebook page. 

I see a woman with questions.  Is it okay to be as strong as I am? As smart as I am? It is okay to know what I know? To become a woman? It is okay to be short, ethnic and over 40 in Hollywood? My belly in this photo grounds me, I appear centered. Yet I wonder.  Will my baby be healthy? Will I ruin him/her with all the mistakes I will make?  I see a woman who is about to laugh or cry, could go either way.  I see a girl ever hopeful, who misses her father. 

I know this woman, but I almost never take time to just look at her, let alone just appreciate her.  When I saw this picture, I initially felt good like I was seeing an old friend, but once I became conscious that I was looking at myself, I immediately felt disappointed with my hair, blemishes on my skin, my weight.  Perhaps I rarely look at myself because I don’t like the way I look.  It makes me sad that I’m so judgmental of myself, because I’m really not that bad.  I’m special. There’s something special about me, and I can see it in my own eyes.  I can see my confidence, my warmth, that comes from the fighting, loving spirit deep within me.   I want that energy to shine first (perhaps it does?).  I wonder what others see when they look at me – what do they see first?  But that’s not the right question, is it? The question is “What can I do so that I see the good in myself first?”

At 35, I feel my place is becoming clearer and easier.  I try to be practical and realistic.  I feel stronger than the 21 year old I was, who thought she knew everything.  My body is decorated to celebrate my life.  The life of my daughter who grew inside of me, the lives of my favorite people who have shaped me into who I am.  I will dye my hair blue or wear glitter lipstick because why not?  If I can be an example, to anyone, to do what makes you happy then that makes me happy.  I am a 5’3” multi-racial, daughter, wife, mother, photographer, crochet enthusiast, dancer, coffee-lover.

The one word that comes to mind is satisfaction.  This is the face and posture of someone who is comfortable and satisfied with her position in life.  I am a NYC firefighter in Engine 58—the best firehouse in the world.  I am the result of many hands molding me into the firefighter I am—especially Lt. Robert Nagel—my hero, my role model.  A man who looked life and death straight in the face, walked the walk and talked the talk.  To have the best job in the best house in the best city in the world—this explains the smile captured here.  It may not always be on my face, but it is always in my heart.  

As I behold this photo for the first time, a smile lights up my face.  There I am, freshly turned 50, doing exactly what I am meant to be doing, sitting with goats reminding the world that the beauty and joy in life is often found in the most simple of endeavors.  I am happy, I am at peace. I remember not to take myself too seriously, but to do what needs to be done.  The goats are my anchor.  What is yours?

It's difficult for me to identify with my image in photos. I attribute that to a life-long habit of observation, rather than participation. This photo was taken in 2007. I was happy then, the happiest I'd been since the births of my children:  I had managed after eight years of relentlessness to get our screenplay of Brokeback Mountain made into a fine film.  Oliver and Amanda were my sole companions and had brought life into my home, my first dogs in nearly a decade, and a great comfort to me when in the following year, Heath tragically passed away, then my beloved older brother/best friend ended his long battle with cancer.  Since this photo, Ollie and Mandy have been joined by five more orphan dogs; my foster child and young niece Ashley; and Larry and Faye McMurtry.  My home today is very, very "alive."  And I realize, looking at this photo, that this all began in 2007.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.... Diana Ossana 2015

Related Reading: An Artist is Covering Washington, DC with Portraits of Congresswomen.

Want the best of Bitch in your inbox? Sign up for our free weekly reader!

The opening scenes of Karima: A Day In The Life of a Henna Girlfeature close-ups of her beautiful henna’d hands. We see the face of the girl in question only after we’ve seen her pull a red-and-white striped djellaba over her head, after she’s pulled on her black and white polka-dotted socks, and after she slips on a pair of babouches. And then, finally, the camera pans up to her face. Even then, we can see only her eyes as she adjusts her black niqab and a hot pink headscarf. A few minutes later, she’s hopped onto a bike and the camera follows Karima and her friends as they navigate the narrow alleyways of Marrakesh, Morocco. Their final destination is the massive marketplace, Jema’a El Fena, where Karima will set up shop with her colleague Anouar and henna the hands of tourists and patrons walking through the famous square.

Karima, directed by the famed Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj, premiered last week to a packed theatre at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hajjaj attended the debut of the documentary flanked by Karima herself. He’s been working in the art and music industries for over two decades, but when his photo series profiling the female bikers of Morocco ('Kesh Angels) debuted in 2014, his work became internationally recognizable, celebrated by the New York Times and The Guardian and also by fervent online audiences. I first came across his portraits of Moroccan Muslim women dressed in brightly colored djellabas and niqabs, sitting astride motorcycles and set against vibrantly patterned backgrounds while scrolling through Tumblr. In one photo, the women wear djellabas and niqabs emblazoned with the Nike logo. In another, their dresses were army camo, and their Moroccan babouche slippers were rendered in the iconic brown Louis Vuitton lettering. In all the photos, the women seem to stare with defiance at the camera, projecting an unspoken challenge to the lens. These portraits demanded to be reblogged. They were, as The New York Times called them, “dazzling.”

Two photos from the 'Kesh Angels series, as seen at the Taymour Grahne Gallery. 

What was the subject of Hajjaj’s 'Kesh Angels? Was it the women or was it the veils? His portraits were less about people than they were about the collection of symbols, and what they meant when they were overlayed with each other. In fact, Hajjaj designed all the clothes featured in the photographs, including the babouches. These images weren’t so much about authentic representation as they were about countering other representations. He began the project, he says, after working on a photoshoot in Marrakesh that featured non-Moroccan models and Western clothes. “I want to show that that Arab women are not passive, and that they can ride bikes,” Hajjaj told White Wall Mag last year. “I want to address the misunderstanding of Arab women by journalists who misconstrue them because of religion.”

It’s this intent that explains, partly, why Hajjaj's work has become so popular in the past few years. His photos and, now, film centering on veiled women constitute a response to the representations of Muslim women that currently saturate news reports and Hollywood films and TV shows. The kinds of representations, for example, which inspire comparisons of Muslim women to actual garbage bags. The kinds of representations that compel governments to implement hijab bans. The kinds of representations that provoke violent attacks upon the bodies of covered Muslim women.

These Muslim women are not like those Muslim women, Hajjaj’s images say. These Muslim women are depoliticized and decontextualized, the veiled Muslim woman made palatable to a Western audience. She wears Nike symbols just like you. She rides a motorbike. And she doesn’t look like she’s going to be strapping a bomb onto her chest any time soon. When introduced to the Western imagination, her hijab becomes a signifier for the traditional and the provincial. The logos she bears on her clothing become the signifiers of modernity and globalization. The rigid binary between these two concepts means that when they are combined together, they constitute a contradiction. And it’s the assumed tension between them that fascinates the Western art world. A gallery spokesperson said as much to the IBI Times, when explaining Hajjaj’s work: "His confident, upbeat portraits of young women wearing veils and djellabah while posing on motorcycles subvert preconceived notions of Arab women. His subjects are traditionally clad but defiantly modern, bearing bright smiles and the markers of youth, independence, celebration, and fun." 

Karima is the cinematic manifestation of this idea. While the film is marketed as a documentary, Hajjaj’s stylistic hand is evident in the staging of the shots and the arrangement of the props. In a Q&A session, he even admits to providing Karima with his signature babouches, a pair decorated with multilingual scripts. Hajjaj also invited his friend Meriem to participate in the scenes as a customer.

Karima covers a customer's hands with an intricate henna design. 

The film spends long days with Karima as she sits in the middle of the square with a syringe of henna, enticing passersby with a laminated book of designs. She doesn’t speak much, except when conversing with customers. Meriem is the first patron, a young Moroccan woman who arrives at Karima’s seat wearing “Western” clothes—a leather jacket, a sweater, a neckscarf and pants. Meriem asks her why she veils her face. Karima tells her it’s to protect her skin from the sun. 

This exchange, as innocuous as it appears, is important to the demystification process that Hajjaj is facilitating through his circulation of these images. Karima professes no religious justification for the veil; her reasoning is merely practical, utilitarian. And in fact, when Karima herself appeared alongside Hajjaj at the LACMA screening, her head was uncovered. The act instigates a more fluid, nuanced understanding of how Muslim women relate to their headcoverings than we often seen in media. She is controlling, very precisely, the image she projects to the world.

Just like the veil is a weighty symbol, so are the motorcycles of Kesh Angels. In the photo series, the motorcycles are meant to invoke a sense of exciting recklessness, independence, and rebellion that’s not usually associated with Arab women. But in reality, the motorcycles don’t represent rebellion in Marrakesh—they’re merely practical in a city whose narrow streets and alleyways are difficult to traverse with a car. You can see others riding motorcycles on the streets and in the squares, just as you can see other Moroccan women, in the periphery of the camera’s frame, dressed in the same colorful djellabas as Karima and her posse of henna girls. This is what normal looks like in Morocco. But when the camera lands on a carefree Muslim girl, all normality is rendered exceptional. 

Watch the trailer for Karima: A Day In The Life of a Henna Girl: 

Related Reading: Anti-Muslim Bus Ads in San Francsisco Get an Update With Ms. Marvel

Tasbeeh Herwees is a freelance writer, journalist, and carefree Muslim girl based in Los Angeles, CA. 

Want the best of Bitch in your inbox? Sign up for our free weekly reader!