Gender and art

Realism in Rawiya presents the work of Rawiya, the first all female photographic collective to emerge from the Middle East. With a specific focus on gender and identity, the exhibition presents a thoughtful view of a region in flux, balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and stereotypes.

Rawiya, which translates from Arabic to mean ‘she who tells a story’, is made up of artists who established their individual careers as photojournalists by working for news agencies and publications across the Arab world. By living and reporting in the region, they gained an insider’s view of the extremities of these settings, whilst also observing how their reportage could become reframed in the international media’s final edit of events.

Realism in Rawiya: Photographic Stories from the Middle East

18th Feb - 16th May 2015

Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK

A scene from 'Qahera', a graphic comic created by Egyptian graphic design student Deena Mohamed.

It wasn’t Egypt’s police force that saved Layla from sexual assault, it was Qahera, a sword-wielding, female superhero in a long black hijab.

Groped by the comic strip’s villains, Layla’s hopes of police assistance are dashed when an officer castigates her for wearing inappropriate clothing -- trousers and a sweater. Back on the street, she’s confronted by another gang of tormentors and is saved only when Qahera appears, beating them with a stick and then stringing them by the scruff of their necks from the police station railings.

Qahera is emblematic of a new breed of Arab comic superheroine emerging as liberals and conservatives dispute the legacy of the 2011 uprisings. Young artists are focusing on as yet unresolved issues in the Middle East and North Africa, which have left male-dominated cultures largely intact.

Qajar #25, 1998” gelatin silver print by Shadi Ghadirian.

"At the entry to “The Middle East Revealed: A Female Perspective”, the fascinating new group show at Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC, there is a large color portrait of a modern Arab woman.  She is wearing a headscarf and a slight smile, like a cat who swallowed a canary.  Is she daring the authorities, or perhaps challenging Western preconceptions?  Her headscarf is an American flag.

This exhibition features four contemporary Middle Eastern photographers whose work is being shown for the first time in NY, as well as vintage photographs by the first female photojournalist, American Margaret Bourke-White, taken in Syria on assignment for LIFE magazine in 1940."

This exhibit will run until August 30, 2014.  For more information, go to: http://www.howardgreenberg.com/#home

"Women & Street Art in the Middle East" is an article by StreetArtNews contributing writer Shahad Bishara, Shahad is currently based in the Middle East and regularly reports on Street Art in the region.

"Despite the street art industry being particularly male dominated across the world, there are also many great women artists in the field such as Faith47, Liliwenn and Bastardilla. Some women graffiti artists face challenges working in a male dominated scene even in the Western world, however female artists in the Middle East face even bigger challenges due to the conservative nature of their societies.

One woman creating quite a stir in the scene is Shamsia Hassani, an Afghan graffiti artist and teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Kabul University. Her works often depicts women in burqas, usually painted blue and feminine-like, or fish. The 24- year-old artist is considered to be her country’s first graffiti artist, which is a significant achievement considering its strict views on gender roles. Shamsia has also collaborated with L.A. street artist El Mac on a mural entitled Birds of No Nation for the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial in Australia."