[Reader-list] Princess Hijab

[SJabbar]

Inder, Gowhar, Mahmood,
Your welcome; my pleasure.  It's the sort of piece that both delights and
makes me envious: wish I could have come upon her and written about it with
such sharpness and lightness.
Cheers!
sj


On 14/11/10 7:50 PM, "mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com"
<mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes I must thank you too, really original take..
> Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gowhar fazli <gowharfazili at yahoo.com>
> Sender: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net
> Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 06:17:42
> To: Inder Salim<indersalim at gmail.com>
> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net<reader-list at sarai.net>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Princess Hijab
> 
> Lovely post Sonia,  really enjoyed reading about the art around Hijab ban in
> France, have been following my own thread on this.  This one is the most
> comprehensive review i have read thus far.  Thank you.

--- On Sat, 11/13/10,
> Inder Salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Inder Salim
> <indersalim at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Princess Hijab
> To:
> "reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010,
> 3:10 PM
> 
> http://media.photobucket.com/image/magritee/girto/magritte-rape.jpg
> 
>
> http://www.artnet.com/Galleries/Artwork_Detail.asp?G=&gid=1161&which=&ViewArti
> stBy=&aid=661456&wid=77723&source=artist&rta=http://www.artnet.com
> 
> above
> two interesting paintings by Magritte
> 
> thanks Dear for posting the
> detailed report about
> this artist Princess Hijab's action , a  very
>
> profound,
> and it not certainly tilted towards the Burka Pasand
> ideology,
> there
> the women are supposed not to expose even little hair on
> the
> forehead,
> no naked feet, let alone the hair upon legs and thighs,
> 
> it is
> a very serious work and critics the  heavily
> tilted bourgeoisie
> culture
> prevalent there.
> 
> hope to read some  more comments on this by others
>
> too, which is a
> world wide debate at the moment
> 
> love
> is
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
> 
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 10:03 AM, SJabbar <sonia.jabbar at gmail.com>
>
> wrote:
> >  Cornered ­ Princess Hijab, Paris's elusive graffiti
> artist
> >
> Princess Hijab daubs Muslim veils on half-naked
> fashion ads on the metro.
>
> > Why does she do it? Is she a religious fundamentalist?
> And is she really
> a
> > woman? Angelique Chrisafis meets the elusive street
> artist
> >
> >
> Angelique Chrisafis
> > The Guardian,     Thursday 11 November 2010
> >
> >
> Just after dawn at Havre- Caumartin metro station,
> Paris's first commuters
>
> > are stepping on and off half-empty trains. Then, at
> the end of the
> platform,
> > a figure in black appears, head bowed and feet tapping
> with
> nerves.
> >
> > Princess Hijab is Paris's most elusive street artist.
>
> Striking at night with
> > dripping black paint she slaps black Muslim veils
> on
> the half-naked
> > airbrushed women ­ and men ­ of the metro's fashion
>
> adverts. She calls it
> > "hijabisation". Her guerrilla niqab art has been
>
> exhibited from New York to
> > Vienna, sparking debates about feminism and
>
> fundamentalism ­ yet her
> > identity remains a mystery.
> >
> > In secular
> republican France, there can hardly be a
> more potent visual gag
> > than
> scrawling graffitied veils on fashion ads. Six
> years after a law banned
> >
> headscarves and all conspicuous religious symbols from
> state schools,
> >
> Nicolas Sarkozy's government has banned the niqab from
> public spaces amid
> a
> > fierce row over women's rights, islamophobia and civil
> liberties. The
> "burqa
> > ban", approved last month, means that from next year
> it will be
> illegal for
> > a woman to wear full-face Muslim veils in public, not
> just
> in government
> > offices or on public transport, but in the streets,
>
> supermarkets and private
> > businesses. The government says it is a way of
>
> protecting women's rights and
> > stopping them being forced by men to cover
> their
> faces.
> >
> > Already this has prompted extreme reactions. One
>
> female teacher in favour of
> > the ban was last week given a month's
> suspended jail
> sentence for trying to
> > rip a veil from the face of a
> 26-year-old Emirati
> tourist in a shop, then
> > slapping, scratching and
> biting her. On the other side
> of the argument, two
> > French women calling
> themselves "niqabitch" reproduced
> the classic visual
> > mixed metaphor of
> walking around central Paris in
> niqabs, black hotpants,
> > bare legs and
> high heels, posting a film of it online
> in order to highlight
> > the
> "absurdity" of the ban.
> >
> > But Princess Hijab got there first, and her
> simple,
> almost childlike acts of
> > sabotage with a black marker pen still
> manage to be
> the most unsettling,
> > with the widest audience abroad. Yet
> who is she? A
> French Muslim woman in
> > hijab raging at the system? That
> would be a rare thing
> on Paris's
> > male-dominated graffiti scene. Is she a
> religious
> fundamentalist making a
> > point about female flesh? But she
> likes to leaves a
> witty smattering of
> > buttock cheeks and midriff on
> display. If she's a
> leftwing feminist making a
> > point about the
> exploitation of women, it's odd that
> she always flees the
> > scene of her
> crimes. Is she even Muslim? Her fans like
> to imagine a young
> > rebel
> outsider from Paris's suburban ghettos
> travelling to the capital to
> > make
> her mark. But like Paris's greatest street
> artist, Blek le Rat ‹ who
> >
> inspired Britain's Bansky ‹ she could turn out to be
> a fiftysomething
> white
> > man who voted for Sarkozy.
> >
> > The Princess winds through the
> corridors of
> Havre-Caumartin sizing up the
> > advertising posters lining
> the walls. She has agreed
> to meet as she scours
> > stations for targets for
> her next "niqab
> intervention". In Spandex tights,
> > shorts and a hoodie,
> with a long black wig totally
> obscuring her face, one
> > thing is clear;
> the twentysomething doesn't wear the
> niqab that has become
> > her own
> signature. She won't say if she's a Muslim. In
> fact, it's more than
> >
> likely that Princess Hijab isn't even a woman. There's
> a low note in her
> >
> laughter, a slight broadness to her shoulders. But the
> androgynous figure
> in
> > black won't confirm a gender. "The real identity
> behind Princess
> Hijab is of
> > no importance," says the husky voice behind the wig.
> "The
> imagined self has
> > taken the foreground, and anyway it's an artistic
>
> choice."
> >
> > "I started doing this when I was 17," she says (I'll
> stick
> to "she" as the
> > character is female, even if the person behind it is
>
> perhaps not).
> >
> > "I'd been working on veils, making Spandex outfits
>
> that enveloped bodies,
> > more classic art than fashion. And I'd been
> drawing
> veiled women on
> > skate-boards and other graphic pieces, when I
> felt I
> wanted to confront the
> > outside world. I'd read Naomi Klein's No
> Logo and it
> inspired me to risk
> > intervening in public places, targeting
> advertising."
> >
> > The Princess's first graffiti veil was in 2006, the
>
> "niqabisation" of the
> > album poster of France's most famous female
> rapper,
> Diam's, who by strange
> > coincidence has now converted to Islam
> herself. "It's
> intriguing because
> > she's now wearing the veil," the
> Princess muses.
> Intially she graffitied
> > men, women and children and then
> would stand around to
> gauge the public's
> > response; now she does
> hit-and-runs. "I don't care
> about people's reactions.
> > I can see this
> makes people feel awkward and ill at
> ease, I can understand
> > that, you're
> on your way home after a tough day and
> suddenly you're
> > confronted with
> this."
> >
> > With the Paris metro protective of its advertising
> spaces,
> her work now
> > usually stays up for only 45 minutes to an hour before
>
> being ripped down by
> > officials. She has become highly selective, doing
> only
> four or five graffiti
> > "interventions" in Paris a year. But each is
> carefully
> photographed and has
> > its own afterlife circulating online. The
> "niqabised"
> range from Dolce &
> > Gabbana men's underwear to risque adverts
> for Virgin
> bookshops.
> >
> > Why does she do it? "I use veiled women as a
>
> challenge," she says, quick to
> > add that she believes no one way of
> dressing is either
> good or bad. She's
> > not defending the rights of any
> group and no one needs
> her as a
> > spokesperson. "That's paternalistic. If
> veiled women
> want to make a point,
> > they'd do it themselves. If feminists
> want to do
> something they're capable
> > of doing it on their own." She
> later explains by
> email: "The veil has many
> > hidden meanings, it can be
> as profane as it is sacred,
> consumerist and
> > sanctimonious. From Arabic
> Gothicism to the condition
> of man. The
> > interpretations are numerous and
> of course it carries
> great symbolism on
> > race, sexuality and real and
> imagined geography."
> >
> > Princess Hijab is deliberately cool and detached,
> but
> the one issue that
> > really shakes her ­ and perhaps reveals a little
> of
> her true identity ­ is
> > the place of minorities in France. Beyond
> the
> arguments about whether Muslim
> > women should cover their heads,
> Sarkozy's new ministry
> of "immigration and
> > national identity" and his
> national debate on what it
> means to be French has
> > stigmatised the
> already discriminated and ghettoised
> young people of third-
> > and
> fourth-generation immigrant descent. France has
> the largest Muslim
> >
> population in Europe, but the prevailing
> anti-immigrant discourse, and
> what
> > many view as a pointless burqa ban, has increased the
> feelings of
>
> > marginalisation felt by young Muslims and minorities.
> >
> > Princess Hijab
> sees herself as part of a new "graffiti
> of minorities"
> > reclaiming the
> streets. "If it was only about the
> burqa ban, my work
> > wouldn't have a
> resonance for very long. But I think
> the burqa ban has given
> > a global
> visibility to the issue of integration in
> France," she says. "We
> >
> definitely can't keep closing off and putting groups
> in boxes, always
> >
> reducing them to the same old questions about religion
> or urban violence.
>
> > Education levels are better and we can't have the old
> Manichean
> discourse
> > any more."
> >
> > She adds: "Liberty, equality, fraternity,
> that's a
> republican principle, but
> > in reality the issue of minorities in
> French society
> hasn't really evolved
> > in half a century. The outsiders in
> France are still
> the poor, the Arabs,
> > black and of course, the Roma."
>
> >
> > The Princess won't say what her own roots are. She
> simply says she
> sees her
> > work as a kind of "cartography of crime" a mapping out
> of the
> underbelly of
> > the city where "I bring inside everything that's been
>
> excreted out."
> >
> > And yet her graffiti is particularly French in its
>
> anti-consumerism and
> > ad-busting stance. For her, painting a veil on
> adverts
> works visually
> > because the two are "dogmas that can be
> questioned".
> She feels young women
> > wearing the hijab who were once
> stigmatised by French
> institutions are now
> > being targeted for their
> purchasing power, the
> "perfect customers" in
> > France's increasingly
> consumerist society.
> >
> > Her next spree will focus on her favourite
> target
> brand, H&M. After all, its
> > ad campaigns are plastered all over
> the Paris metro.
> She argues that the
> > brand "democratised" fashion at low
> prices, women in
> hijab often shop there,
> > and inking out H&M models is
> the perfect act of
> confrontation: "It's
> > visually very striking because
> [the brand's] images
> are ideologically very
> > present in the urban
> landscape."
> >
> > So these blacked-out niqabs seem to represent
> everything
> but religion. "Am I
> > religious?" she asks, hesitating. "The spiritual
>
> interests me, but that's
> > personal, I don't think it bears on my work.
> Religion
> interests me, Muslims
> > interest me and the impact they can
> have,
> artistically, aesthetically, in
> > the codes that are all around us,
> particularly in
> fashion," she muses.
> >
> > And with that, the graffiti
> performance artist
> scuttles off, kit-bag over
> > her shoulder, to change
> out of her bizarre disguise
> and into her own
> > everyday fashion and wander
> off above ground into the
> daylight.
> >
> > guardian.co.uk © Guardian News
> and Media Limited
> 2010
> > _________________________________________
> >
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> 
> 
> -- 
>
> 
> http://indersalim.livejournal.com
>
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