Mariam Magsi: Imagining the Possibilities of a Hot Red Burqa
By Erin Haney
Mariam Magsi’s double-consciousness — mindful of where and to whom her work can and cannot be seen — is a strength. My conversation with the Toronto-based photographer in October, as she was preparing for a number of upcoming exhibitions, revealed her to be an agile and witty provocateur.
She marks the gambles artists often take — alienating their family and societies — by drawing out and gesturing to the secrets and ambiguities of those who are loved. She evokes a fascinating intellectual and creative milieu: her parents’ artistic and independent professions, the risks taken by lovers in silenced LGBTQI communities in the Middle East, and the possibilities of a hot pink burqa.
Magsi was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, where the prevalence of the burqa and the versions worn by women and girls are changing. Her recent and ongoing work on the burqa includes photographs and public performances that are meditations on the garment’s formal qualities and metaphorical possibilities. With Magsi’s imagery, burqas reveal shades of the subversive bodies underneath. Her subjects are quietly outrageous, vivid and embracing, their genders and sexual identities undetermined.
Her portraits, hiding so much desire, confound us. They might elicit sympathy, consternation, anger — they are meant to provoke.
In North American and European circles, her photos spark public conversations on the freedom to dress, debates around modesty, and respect for individual versus societal religious expression (over space, over time.) Magsi has ties to artists in Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, where interest in her work highlights kindred explorations of gender, femininity and sexuality.
In these societies, supporters and artists know that such ideas are too provocative to be seen publically. For now, secret messages, stashed under a burqa cloth, might hold the place for futures yet to come.
Q: What sparked your interest in the burqa as a device, a metaphor?
A: I am confused, curious, fascinated, repelled, inspired, bemused and aggravated by the burqa. So I thoroughly enjoy investigating Muslim subcultures that use it in rebellious ways: to illustrate creative, politically charged opinions.
I befriended someone who identifies with being a queer Muslim, closeted due to fear of alienating family and immense societal pressure. I discovered that several of the LGBTQI community in Iran and Saudi Arabia use the chador, niqab and burqa to cross-dress. This allows them to travel to private parties and express taboo love in these exceedingly restrictive and policed societies, where their actions are considered deviant and punishable.
On the other hand, when I was doing photographic work on the outskirts of Karachi, a particular family stood out. Women in burqas, children on their hips, groceries in hand, awkwardly attempting to cross a puddle while protecting their robes. It was their shoes that left me mesmerized: beautiful rhinestone-decorated heels, hennaed feet. Their feet were the only way they could express a fashionable identity. That image stayed for a long time.
