The burqa — an aesthetically stunning style of the veil , usually blue or black , with a mesh over the eyes — has evolved into the controversial and the divisive . No longer is it seen as a garment worn by some Muslim women to cover their bodies in public , a marker of religious identity , a desire to separate spiritual space from the outside world .
It is now symbol — of oppression , of religious freedom , of citizenship .
While many employ the burqa as fodder for debate , the
Artists Of Note we ’ ve selected for The Burqa Issue use their creative voice and art practice to examine the complicated experiences of the women who actually wear the burqa — by choice or by force . These multi-disciplinary global artists employ the burqa , actual and symbolic , in their photography , documentary film , poetry , graffiti , street art , murals , sculpture and painting , to trouble our perceptions .
While their art questions , provokes , defends , indicts , or unapologetically takes a stance for or against the burqa , it is art that is first and foremost deeply personal , before it is political . Each of these women know intimately , and at times painfully , how the world encounters women donned in burqas because they have worn them or borne witness to stories of the women they love — their mothers , sisters , aunts , matriarchs and friends — who have .
It is this offering of their deeply personal and intimate art that allows us to probe the contradictory and counter the political :
Can we honor a woman ’ s desire for the sacred solace the burqa offers ? Can we find value in a spiritual philosophy that a woman ’ s body is not for public consumption ?
Although none of the artists take on the role of a spokesperson , here in this issue , women speak for women . The team behind The Burqa Issue are all women . They bring to bear roots from Afghanistan , Algeria , Canada , Guyana , India , Iran , Nigeria , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , United Kingdom , and the United States to elevate the voices of the women who wear the burqa .
Many of the writers who collaborated with the artists to write their stories entered into these cross-continent conversations bravely — they either knew little about the politics that enshrouds the burqa , or they subscribed to the view of the burqa as symbolic of the physical and psychological oppression of women , or they believed that banning a woman from wearing a burqa is equally oppressive as forcing her to wear it . After our writers filed their stories , each of them had their stances disrupted — and beautifully so .
The Burqa Issue is not prescriptive . We offer no blueprint to our readers on what stance they should take , we only unveil how deeply complex the burqa is . As a means to understand the burqa in all its beauty , contradictions , and failures we turn to Art . Not because the art of the burqa grants us answers . But because , to echo the words of Princess Hijab , the Paris-based artist who employs the veil as a symbol in her street art : “ I choose the veil because it does what art should do : It challenges , it frightens , and it re-imagines .”
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