Object number2021.26
Converging Territories #5
Portfolio/Seriesfrom the series Converging Territories
Date2004
Artist
Lalla Essaydi
(Moroccan, born 1956)
CultureMoroccan, American
MediumChromogenic print, mounted on aluminum
EditionOne from an edition of 7
DimensionsImage: 36 x 29 in. (91.4 x 73.7 cm)
Framed: 40 1/2 x 33 1/2 in. (102.9 x 85.1 cm)
Framed: 40 1/2 x 33 1/2 in. (102.9 x 85.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of Sally Lyman Rheinfrank, class of 1963
On View
Not on viewPeriod21st c
Classification(s)
SignedOn the reverse of the flush-mount, signed on a Howard Yezerski Gallery lower center in ink: Lalla Essaydi
InscribedOn the reverse of the flush-mount, various printed information on a Howard Yezerski Gallery label
BibliographyEssaydi, Lalla and Amanda Carlson. 2005. Converging Territories. 1st ed. New York: PowerHouse Books, p. 9;
Melis, Wim and Michket Krifa. Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World. New York, Aperture, 2005, p. 26.ProvenanceHoward Yezerski GalleryVassar Exhibitions
Label TextLalla Essaydi stages a scene of deliberate stillness: a woman swathed in white fabric, seated against tiled walls, her body inscribed with cascading Arabic script. The calligraphy flows across skin, cloth, and architecture alike—a continuous surface of marking that renders the figure and her surroundings inseparable. Applied in henna by the artist’s hand, the script operates as both pattern and language, protection and disclosure. Composed from autobiographical writings, the text wends into texture, inviting the gaze while withholding legibility. This series grew from Essaydi’s need to document the spaces of her childhood and understand her experience as an Arab woman within Islamic and Western culture. Working between henna, fabric, and interior space, she creates what she calls “converging territories” of past and present, tradition and independence. The photograph reimagines the domestic sphere as a site of authorship, confronting both Western Orientalist hegemony and inherited cultural constraints.
DescriptionAn image of a figure draped in a white cloth with ink on the soles of their feet and text written horizontally across them and on the tops of their feet among a backdrop of the same fabric and text. A black Fujifilm border is visible around the image.
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