Inscribing Muslim Women’s Body Spaces

My research project explores the artistic and cultural manifestations in which contemporary Muslim women define their body space to defy internal, traditional restrictions and external, orientalist Western gazes. Through my examination of the artwork of photographer Lalla Essaydi (1956- ), whose portraits of Muslim women incorporate layers of Islamic calligraphy applied by hand with henna on the women’s bodies and clothing, and the revival of the Muslim fashion movement in Egypt, I demonstrate how the tactic of Muslim women’s double agency in self-representation is at once conventional and revolutionary.