Harem #35 2013

Lalla Essaydi created “Harem #35”, a photograph, in an unknown year. The composition immediately strikes us with its opulent display of colors, patterns, and textures, evoking both a sense of luxury and a complex visual tension. The figures are adorned with fabrics that blend into the backdrop, challenging our perception of space and depth. Essaydi uses the semiotic language of the harem, a space traditionally associated with seclusion and orientalist fantasies, and subverts it by inscribing Arabic calligraphy, a symbol of knowledge and power, onto the women's skin and garments. This act destabilizes established meanings, transforming the women from passive objects of desire into active participants in their own representation. The repeating patterns and the flattening of perspective deny a single, fixed viewpoint. Instead, Essaydi offers a space of multiplicity and fluidity. The photograph functions as a site for ongoing interpretation, where the aesthetic and the conceptual intertwine. It invites us to reconsider the interplay between tradition, representation, and female agency.