Lalla Assia Essaydi (Arabic: للا السيدي; born 1956) is a Moroccan photographer known for her staged photographs of Arab women in contemporary art. She currently works in Boston, Massachusetts, and Morocco. Her current residence is in New York.
Influenced by her experiences growing up in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, Essaydi explores the ways that gender and power are inscribed on Muslim women's bodies and the spaces they inhabit. She has stated that her work is autobiographical[3] and that she was inspired by the differences she perceived in women's lives in the United States versus in Morocco, in terms of freedom and identity.[4] She explores a wide range of perspectives, including issues of diaspora, identity, and expected location through her studio practice in Boston.[5] The inspiration for many of her works came from her childhood, in the physical space where she, as a young woman, was sent when she disobeyed. She stepped outside the permissible behavioral space, as defined by Moroccan culture.[6] Essaydi said her works will become haunted by spaces she inhabited as a child.[7]
Several pieces of her work (including Converging Territories) combine henna, which is traditionally used to decorate the hands and feet of brides, with Arabic calligraphy, a predominantly male practice.[8] While she uses henna to apply calligraphy to her female subjects' bodies, the words are indecipherable in an attempt to question authority and meaning.[8]
The women depicted in her exhibition of photographs, Les Femmes du Maroc, are represented as decorative and confined by the art of henna.[9] Essaydi thus poses her subjects in a way that exemplifies society's views of women as primarily destined for mere beauty. Henna, however, is extremely symbolic, especially to Moroccan women. It is an association with familial celebrations of a young girl reaching puberty and transitioning into a mature woman. The use of henna in her work creates a silent atmosphere of the women "speaking" to each other through a quality of femininity. It is predominantly a painting process where women who are discouraged to work outside the home find a profitable work in applying a tattoo-like material.[9] Beyond creating powerful pieces revolving around the art of henna, Essaydi includes interpretations of traditional Moroccan elements, including draped folds of cloths adorning women's bodies, mosaic, tiles, and Islamic architecture.[10]
Initiated in the early 2000s, Essaydi's photographic series Converging Territories captures women dressed in white, covered in Arabic calligraphy written with henna, positioned within traditional Moroccan domestic spaces. As Islamic calligraphy was typically only taught to men, Essaydi, a self taught calligrapher, portrayed this writing on her subjects to embrace the gender roles of her cultural heritage.[11] The scenes portrayed are a distinct form of resistance, allowing the women depicted to claim the spaces as their own and rewrite the narratives of their lived experiences.[12] Essaydi's meticulous process involves hours of hand-painting the henna calligraphy on her subjects and their environments.[13] The resulting images in "Converging Territories" are a critique of the patriarchal structures while celebrating the strength and resilience of Arab women.[14]Converging Territories has been exhibited at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Joel Soroka Gallery, the Anya Tish Gallery, Jackson Fine Art, the Lisa Sette Gallery, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Howard Yezerski Gallery, and the Laurence Miller Gallery. [15]
Her work is represented in a number of collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago;[20] the Museum Five Continents;[21] the San Diego Museum of Art;[citation needed] the Cornell Fine Arts Museum,[22] Winter Park, Florida; the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;[23] the National Museum of Women in the Arts;[19] and the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts.[24]
^ abEssaydi, Lalla (2005). Converging Territories. New York: PowerHouse Books. pp. 26–29. ISBN9781576872567.
^Rocca, Anna (Fall 2014). "In Search of Beauty in Space: Interview with Lalla Essaydi". Dalhousie French Studies. 103 (Women from the Maghreb: Looking Back and Moving Forward): 119–127. JSTOR43487469.
^Goodman, Abigail Ross, ed. (2013). Art for Rollins: the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art. Winter Park, Fla.: Cornell Fine Arts Museum. ISBN978-0-9792280-2-5.
