About Made in Paris
All Paris-based and working in a variety of media, from photography and video to performance and installation, these artists bring different interpretations and experiences of veiling to their individual artistic practices.
2 Jun – 5 Jun: Marc Garanger Photography
While photographer Marc Garanger was doing his military service, the army insisted on taking identity photographs of all Algerians during the War of Independence (1954-62). Adopting a critical stance, Garanger took this chance to make artistic portraits in which he tried to reflect the beauty of Algerian women who were being faced with outrageous racism by the French government and army. TheSpace@inIVA shows a selection of his deeply disturbing images full of imminent violence. His photographs have been published in Marc Garanger: Femmes Algeriennes 1960 (Atlantica, 2002).
10 Jun – 13 Jun: Ghazel: Me
inIVA has commissioned Ghazel to make a trilogy of films as part of her Me series in which Ghazel re-enacts moments from her personal diary with the veil as her ever-present costume. Each scene is accompanied by a caption in French or English, neither of which are her mother tongues. Full of irony and surreal humour, Ghazel’s performances highlight her position as an outsider both in the West and in Iran.
Benyahia uses Arab-Andalusian geometrical patterns and rosaces – called fatima in Arabic – to explore ideas of contrast such as light/shade, female/male, inside/outside. Here she also shows four large-scale photographs Visages de Rencontres (2000) and a new sculpture.
Khattari’s highly political works link Western high fashion with Islamic codes of dress and behaviour. In anticipation of her fashion show Défilé – Performance at Oxford, inIVA presents a film of her fashion show and some preparatory drawings.Her clothes are not simply designed to flatter the wearer; instead, they are created to restrict movement and conspicuously to conceal or reveal different parts of the body.