Ways of Seeing, Ways of Believing
Shahla Bahrami adorns her chair with esoteric calligraphy as a vehicle for wishes of peace. “Rather than a representation of Islam, I felt a desire to create a poetic mysticism whose role would be to exorcise a lived experience, that of the fate of Muslim women. I used a fragment of a chanted psalm of praise to the Prophet performed by a woman of Berber origin. This fragment, having undergone distortions, repeats itself insistently until the singer’s voice reveals itself in all its splendor. This tribute to perseverance serves to join the message of peace, so dear to Shahla, and also relates to the struggle of women aspiring to greater freedom within their religion.”
Clarissa Schmidt Inglis displays raw and crude elements, almost carnal. There is the expression of suffering experienced in the flesh and the will to legitimize a female body dishonored and despised by a patriarchal Christianity that considers it as the object of original sin. Here, the video is heavy with symbols, somewhat like the chair. A woman’s breathing evokes her vitality. The male voice announces her condemnation (like that of Eve, responsible for the fall of men). The text in Latin is a passage from Recordare: the Ingemisco. It evokes the absolution of Mary Magdalene, which gives hope to all sinners of being forgiven by God, signifying thereby that there would be no worse sin than that of a woman.