Plastic Women, 2019, pigment prints
Top Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre
Plastic Women explores how ideations of control and freedom are constructed and projected onto women’s bodies, particularly those outside our own cultural normality. Approaching this provocation from a Muslim/Australian perspective, this work questions culturally loaded symbols – hair, dress (or undress), and veiling.
How much of our interpretations of these symbols depends on our cultural and historical perspectives? In a Western artistic context, can Muslim bodies be separated from politics and imperialist readings?
This work forms part of an ongoing practice investigating the importance of authorship and the role of power in creating alternative histories and cultural lenses through which to understand experiences of the body.