alternarrative

The NY Times had an interesting article about two Muslim artists based in New York: Asma Ahmed Shikoh and  Negar Ahkami. You can see more of their work on their respective websites. I hope to be able to check out the exhibition on my next trip to the City.

I was really struck by Ahkami’s remarkably unique stylistic achievements. “The Fall” is a fascinating example. Among Shikoh’s works, I thought “Self-Portraits 1, 2 & 3” (or, the Statue of Liberty as a desi bride, a pregnant woman, and a mother with child) are quite interesting. Her “Beehive” is also an interesting project that involved collecting nearly a 100 actual hijabs mailed to her by women who wore them. As I examined a close-up photo of the ‘cells,’ I was thinking the piece could raise interesting questions about the currency of the headscarf as a ‘fetish’ in contemporary material culture.