7ur’iyaa

nov 2020.

Through my project 7ur’iyaa (Liberation), I attempted to tackle and reflect on the irony surrounding cultural expectations in the Middle East. I initially started my project by breaking down what taboo means and how it’s manifested itself in the Middle East. After some initial research, I was able to find a focus group of people that have all grown up in the Arab world, each of which have fallen victim to the deeply rooted expectations that exist. There are many topics that we are taught from a young age that we are expected to avoid mentioning or discussing, including mental health, abuse, sexuality, drinking, smoking. It is also often the case that exposure to the freedom of such factors later in life, i.e., via moving abroad, can result in overindulgence. Essentially, there is a range of things that can be considered culturally inappropriate, but my focus in this project was to examine and visualize what taboo means to each individual in the focus group of people, and how they have been affected in the longer term. Therefore, I decided to create a series of portraits for each model, giving them a platform, as well as a way to break ties with these expectations and liberate themselves from these constraints.