Artists Decolonizing Colonial Depictions of Women from the Middle East and North Africa

Run a quick search on eBay and you will likely find several postcards featuring photos of women from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, often appearing subservient or sexualized. What remains common among these postcards are the stereotypes that they have perpetuated over the decades, and that they continue to perpetuate. A collector might think of them as “kitschy” or “quirky,” but they often ignore the problematic dynamic behind them — one of orientalism, colonialism, and patriarchy.

Salma Ahmad Caller, a London-based artist, art historian, and researcher, first came across a postcard from the 1800s depicting an Egyptian woman at the Spitalfields Market in London about five years ago. Born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and British mother, and having spent formative years in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, Caller was well versed in the concepts of colonialism and orientalism.

The postcard featured a charismatic Egyptian woman who was wearing a mix of western and Egyptian attire, standing on the street and posing for the photographer. While the postcard — because of Caller’s personal interest in the region — piqued her interest, the inscription on the back was what bothered and angered her.

“A smelly woman from Cairo,” it read.

Finding colonial postcards across Europe

Digging deeper, Caller found that the unidentified woman was exceptional for those times. The subject was part of a successful Ghawazi (indigenous, nomadic dance form in Egypt) troupe. She was an independent, successful dancer with her own financial means, which was quite rare even for a western woman of that time, Caller explains.

“And here she was, being described very insultingly.”

This, however, was one of the “less problematic” postcards of the 200 or so that Caller eventually collected. As Caller embarked on a journey to study colonial postcards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, she came across a wide array that were problematic in how they represented MENA women.

During her research, Caller also came across several other artists who were collecting and studying postcards from other colonial empires. Iranian-British artist Afsoon found postcards sent from Algeria to France at French flea markets; Spanish artists Eugenia López Reus and Miguel Jaime (who work under the name CritTeam) collected Moroccan postcards found in Barcelona’s flea markets. Hala Ghellali collected Libyan postcards and photographs found in Italy.

Along with six other artists, Caller launched “The Postcard Women’s Imaginarium,” a project that uses artwork to decolonize the representation of MENA women and offer an alternative narrative.

Orientalism, colonialism, and patriarchy at play

During the 1800s, the Daguerre photographic process became popular, and wealthy European photographers were funded by colonial governments to travel and document the life and people in the region. Imperial powers believed that they were at the top of a racial hierarchy and everyone else fit into a lower rung. The postcards of women were a pseudo-ethnography that revealed both colonizers’ fascination with how the lower rungs worked and their stereotypical ideas about people of the region, Caller explains.

“European ethnographers and anthropologists were fascinated with how these ‘primitive peoples’ could be organized into categories, much like plants and animal species.”

She also notes that the postcards were ethnographically inaccurate. For instance, an orientalist photographer would adorn the woman in whatever he fancied, regardless of whether or not it was an accurate representation of the country’s culture or customs. By choosing what the women wore, how they were positioned, and what the setting looked like, the photographers framed the narrative on what would be considered “exotic” to a western audience.

As with colonial subjugation, Caller says that the subjects likely had no say, and they may have either been paid or coerced into this dynamic.

Lastly, there is also the trope of overtly sexualized Arab women, exemplified, for instance, by the controversial work of European photographers Lehnert & Landrock, who featured nude Tunisian girls as young as 14 years old. During the 1890s, European authorities started cracking down on erotic postcards, which gave birth to an “under the counter” market. One couldn’t send a nude image of a European woman, but orientalist postcards were sent around the world in the name of ethnography.

“There are a lot of postcards with bare-breasted, naked women sent to a Europe to horrify, delight, titillate, or shock,” Caller says. “It may have been a part of their culture. But if it’s taken out of context, it becomes a weapon that is shaped by somebody else’s narrative.”

These misleading postcards are still widely circulated in flea markets and vintage stores, and continue to perpetuate racial stereotypes about the MENA region.

“It’s a tired, old contrast,” she adds.

“It’s problematic because people don’t know what they’re looking at and they think it’s an ethnographic reality. It continues to perpetuate racial stereotypes with people believing that this is what the Middle East is: primitive, backward, old-fashioned, with quaint traditions.”

Imagining an alternate narrative

Speaking about The Postcard Women’s Imaginarium project, Caller explains that right from the beginning, the artists knew they wouldn’t be able to find too many factual truths about the postcard women.

“As an alternative way to disrupt the gaze on the women, we decided to create our own postcard Imaginarium using various techniques that depict the women, or even not really show them by adding layers or other contradictions.”

Each artist used a different medium and technique to make the viewer raise questions about the realities of these women and what they were looking at. “And that’s why we call it an Imaginarium, because it’s also not the truth.”

For instance, the Spanish artists Reus and Jaime cut up a Lehnert & Landrock image and interspersed it with ornamental designs from the Nasrid period of Alhambra. The Postcard Imaginarium project has had two exhibitions in London, the first one in 2019 and one last year. The artists have also curated a book of photography, collage, imagery, and essays to offer a multifaceted perspective to these seemingly attractive postcards.

Currently, the Imaginarium lives on a Facebook discussion group, with over 300 members comprising artists, academics, and historians.