Art & Exhibitions
At the Carnegie, Photographer Tanya Habjouqa Makes a Muslim Girl Seem Like Any Other Selfie Addict
THE DAILY PIC: An Arab woman photographs an Arab woman photographing.
Blake Gopnik
Share This Article
An English literature student at the Islamic University in Gaza takes a break with fellow students. She is eager to apply her English skills and says that her dream is to travel the world. The siege on Gaza makes travel near impossible for the vast majority of Gazans.
THE DAILY PIC (#1355): This photo by Tanya Habjouqa is in a show called “She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World”, at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. One thing I like about it is the way it normalizes a Muslim woman and removes any trace of the exotic from her. She’s just a normal girl who takes pleasure in a scarlet scarf and pink cell phone, the way her counterparts might all over the world.
And because she seems to be taking a selfie, there’s some sense that the girl stands for Habjouqa herself, as the female author of the photo. That is, the very existence of this image proves that Muslim woman can have – or could have, even in the face of repression – a wider range of roles than we in the West often imagine them having. (Copyright Tanya Habjouqa)
For a full survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
Article topics
Related Articles
-
