BADASS Muslimahs

frommadon:

Kim Badawi’s breathtaking portraits of Egypt’s Chinese community.

(via theuncolonizedmind)

freeafghanistan:

Saffron in Herat, Afghanistan. 

(via azaadi)

mona-tomic:

In response to the racist/islamophobic ads that have recently come up;

The MYG of the ICSC presents:

My Jihad Is…

(Source: ghannoum)

dynamicafrica:

Portraits from a series of photographs taken in Cairo by French photographer Denis Dailleux.

(via theuncolonizedmind)

afghanistaninphotos:

The vocational blind school, which is the only blind school in Afghanistan, was established in 1977 and has more than 187 students including boys and girls. Picture taken September 2, 2012. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

(via zuleikha-deactivated20121202)

picturedept:

GOODBYE MY CHECHNYA by Diana Markosian

Diana Markosian opening at The Half King on September 11, 2012 7:30 PM

After nearly two decades of war and seventy years of Soviet rule, during which religious participation was banned, Chechnya is going through Islamic revival. Where alcohol is all but banned, polygamy encouraged, and single-sex salons and gyms becoming the norm, Chechen girls have very few rights and the most innocent acts could mean breaking the rules. A couple holding hands in public is punishable; the sight of a Chechen girl smoking may lead to her arrest; and rumors of girls having sex before marriage can result in her killing. With this set of images I hope to reveal a more intimate perspective on the personal lives and choices of young girls who are grappling with questions of identity as they come of age in a republic that is rapidly redefining itself as a Muslim state.

Diana Markosian is a documentary photographer whose interest in the aftermath of war has taken her from the remote mountains Dagestan, to the ancient Silk Road in Tajikistan and overland to the perilous landscape of Afghanistan. Originally from Moscow, Russia, she immigrated to the United States as a child. Markosian holds a masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

For more info visit The Half King photography series.

The Half King

505 W 23rd St.
New York, NY 10011

(via yeahyyzzx)

roxygen:

Scènes et Types

In the spring of 2011 I spent three and a half months in Morocco working with writer Sarah Dohrmann on a collaborative project about prostitution and the marginalization of women.

While in Morocco I began to work with collage, cutting up the photographs I was making and piecing them back together, layering and juxtaposing the images.  I was spending time with and photographing women who were pushed to the edges of society – single mothers, divorcées, prostitutes.  Many of these women did not feel safe having their faces photographed - some didn’t feel safe being photographed at all - but it was important for them to talk about their experiences.  I began to use the collages as a way to protect the women’s identities (when necessary) while expressing what I understood about their lives and examining my own perceptions and experiences in the process.

Having worked for several years on long-term projects addressing the complicated and layered issues around prostitution, I had become frustrated with the limitations of straightforward documentary work or reportage.  I felt compelled to take a more conceptual approach to exploring ideas around representation and perception, marginalization, sexuality, the idealization and/or demonization of women’s bodies and, specifically within the context of my work in Morocco, the legacy of colonization and the impact of Orientalist representations of North African women historically and currently. My goal with this work is to not only explore some of the perceptions and realities of women’s lives in Morocco, but to raise questions about the documentary process itself and the impact of visual imagery/representation on women’s relationships with power, choice and identity.

I titled this work Scènes et Types in reference to the colonial Orientalist postcards made primarily by French photographers in the early 1900’s.  These postcards (often in series called Scènes et Types) featured staged portraits of nude or semi-nude North African women in highly exoticized postures, costumes and settings.  It is documented that the models for these photographs were almost always prostitutes.

My collage work is comprised of photographs I made in Morocco in the spring of 2011.