Prompting extreme reactions in France, "six years after a law banned headscarves and all conspicuous religious symbols from state schools, Nicolas Sarkozy's government has banned the niqab from public spaces amid a fierce row over women's rights, islamophobia and civil liberties. The "burqa ban", approved last month, means that from next year it will be illegal for a woman to wear full-face Muslim veils in public". Princess Hajib, religion, sex, identity unknown, started the "niqab intervention" with a black marker pen when she was 17 stating "I'd been working on veils, making Spandex outfits that enveloped bodies, more classic art than fashion. And I'd been drawing veiled women on skate-boards and other graphic pieces, when I felt I wanted to confront the outside world. I'd read Naomi Klein's No Logo and it inspired me to risk intervening in public places, targeting advertising."
Starting in 2006 by 'veiling' the album poster of a famous French rap artist (who has now coincidentally converted to Islam), Princess Hijab used to stand by to suss out the public's responses to her work, but she now prefers to do her thing and flee claiming, "I don't care about people's reactions. I can see this makes people feel awkward and ill at ease, I can understand that, you're on your way home after a tough day and suddenly you're confronted with this." The Paris metro are now on full alert so the altered posters only get to stay up for about an hour before being ripped down but Princess Hijab's selective works live on through photographs posted on the net.
When asked by Guardian why she does it, she states, "I use veiled women as a challenge...the veil has many hidden meanings, it can be as profane as it is sacred, consumerist and sanctimonious. From Arabic Gothicism to the condition of man. The interpretations are numerous and of course it carries great symbolism on race, sexuality and real and imagined geography. If it was only about the burqa ban, my work wouldn't have a resonance for very long. But I think the burqa ban has given a global visibility to the issue of integration in France. We definitely can't keep closing off and putting groups in boxes, always reducing them to the same old questions about religion or urban violence. Education levels are better and we can't have the old Manichean discourse any more."
For Princess Hijab, hitting advertising campaigns "works visually because the two are "dogmas that can be questioned". She feels young women wearing the hijab who were once stigmatised by French institutions are now being targeted for their purchasing power, the "perfect customers" in France's increasingly consumerist society." When asked about the religious meaning of her work, she states, "the spiritual interests me, but that's personal, I don't think it bears on my work. Religion interests me, Muslims interest me and the impact they can have, artistically, aesthetically, in the codes that are all around us, particularly in fashion,"
Princess Hijab's "guerrilla niqab art has been exhibited from New York to Vienna, sparking debates about feminism and fundamentalism – yet her identity remains a mystery."
To read the full article by Angelique Chrisafis & to see more of Princess Hijab's “hijabisation” visit the Guardian.
Images by Princess Hijab & Richard Pak for the Guardian.
Thanks Trish, my European street art informant.
