At first glance, Susan Hefuna’s Woman Behind Mashrabiya I conjures the seemingly distant world of Old Cairo, as captured in vintage photographs and Orientalist paintings. Such settings commonly included a mashrabiya, a wooden window screen that not only circulated fresh air and filtered sunlight but also acted as a kind of architectural veil. Behind the mashrabiya, women could see without being seen, safe from prying eyes and whatever else might lay outside their windows. Here, largely obscured by the deeply cast shadows of the intricately carved window screen, we barely see a woman in full hijab. The tensely structured tectonics of light and shadow give this photograph its strength, but it is the image’s beguiling ambiguity and our own complex reactions to it that make it an exceptional work of art. Hefuna is a multimedia artist who connects to her German and Egyptian roots while building bridges between the two cultures through drawings, sculptures, installations, and video performances.
