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Hejab Headware
Fashion is a language of concealing and revealing.
Hejab Headware is a mixed media installation in which messages
are scrambled, challenging traditional interpretations.
Women’s head scarves/veils can be seen as a fashion display or as an
intersection of contradictory, overlapping ideologies, e.g. cultural
colonialism/ ethnicity, fashion as individual self expression /as patriarchal
tradition. Reinscriptions -
embroidered labels- confuse rather than clarify.
identify competing orthodoxies Hejab Headware similarities win out
over differences, e.g. orthodoxies of freedom and repression, e.g. feminist self
determination and patriarchal sexual repression, innovative fashion and ancient
custom, the U.S. and the Arab world, Christianity and Islam.
Textual reinscriptions in English and Arabic invite viewers to consider
the contradictory implications of the simplest articles of women’s clothing-
the veil and headscarf- when worn by Western and Muslim women.
Reverse reinscription. English
and Arabic inscribed in blood red embroidery. “Hejab” (headscarf) and
“Kemar” (face veil) edge a white tulle bridal veil, while “Hejab”
(headscarf)
is scrolled across the corners of a nun’s veil.
In contrast, the Muslim headscarves carry the English terminology,
Headscarf and Fingertip Veil. Women’s
heads as battlefields on which political/cultural wars are played out: taking
the veil, removing the veil, fingertip veil and bridal veil.
Hejab Headware juxtaposes Western and Muslim veils and headscarves
to explore these contradictions. Western
fashion is associated with artistic innovation, individual self expression, and
the sexual objectification of women- the ever popular Western bridal veil is
historically associated with virginity and subservience.
Post- September 11 racial profiling marked Muslim women wearing head
coverings as potential terrorists and as victims of cultural oppression, even as
Western brides, nuns, and light skinned, light haired women continue to wear
face veils and headscarves with the blessings of fashion.
During the Algerian war for independence from France, Algerian women wore
headscarves as signs of political resistance and cultural solidarity.
More recently, French school superintendents barred French- Algerian
school girls from wearing headscarves to class.