Lalla Esssaydi is a Moroccan born artist who often cites her life experiences as having a major influence on her work. Growing up, her home was a space clearly defined for women. She pulls from this imagery to discuss the culture that she lives in, and to contrast it with Orientalist paintings that often fantasize and fetishize the idea of a harem. Essaydi’s photographs capture both the urban and rural feel of space that the artist’s female subjects interact with, and against.
Essaydi’s connection to urban cities and lifestyles is perhaps most clearly evident in her exhibited photograph from the Harem series. Harem #10 displays a reclining woman dressed in vibrantly decorated clothing that blends in with the tile work in a richly decorated urban house. The densely patterned fabrics that cover her body and the mhedda, or large floor pillow, that she reclines on call to mind the detailed embroidery that women of the harem would make to adorn their living spaces. We also see this connection of clothing and urban living space in three more of her pieces (Les Femmes Du Maroc: La Grande Odalisque, Les Femmes Du Maroc #1, and Les Femmes Du Maroc: La Sultane). In all of these works, which directly pull imagery from Orientalist paintings, there is a feeling of an urban or city setting created by the use of curtains draped across the frame mirroring those that were created by Moroccan women to conceal their living spaces. These curtains are all pulled back and while Orientalism uses that to point to a suggestive nature of a harem girl instead we see scenes closer to the truth: a women plays with her pet bird; a group of women sit in a room talking; and one woman who stares directly at the viewer as if they have disturbed her presence.
Essaydi’s works that focus less on creating a domestic space, such as Les Femmes Du Maroc #10, Converging Territories #10, and Les Femmes Du Maroc #21B, end up instead creating a space reminiscent of the tent like structures of the nomads. The clothing that these women are dressed in is also very similar to the draped garb that rural women wear, with thicker texture and simple design. In Converging Territories #10 we see the female subject actually painting on the fabric-covered wall in henna, connecting the work back again to the henna designs that the nomadic women worked so diligently on. If we are to consider the long process that it takes for henna to be set into cloth then we see the implied time and care of the painter for not only had she executed her whole robe in henna script, but the walls of her tent as well, a dedication to design that holds power.
Les Femmes Du Maroc #10
Converging Territories #10
Les Femmes Du Maroc #21B