Head Wrap II (2016)

"Head Wrap II" investigates head wraps as symbols and markers of cultural identity.

This piece is a slow-motion video portrait of a hijabi woman putting on her veil. It is rear-projected on a two-way mirrored plexiglass that hangs from the ceiling. From the viewer’s perspective, they see an image of themselves in the mirror overlapped with the image of the hijabi woman putting on her veil. I’m hoping to create a pseudo-intimacy that confronts the viewer as well as make them reflect on our shared humanity. The video on a mirrored surface also harks back to the daguerreotype and the troubled beginnings of the medium of photography, when it was seen as “The Pencil of Nature” because of its supposedly “truthful” representation of the Other.