Undressing
Video, 00:06:28. 2006.
As we all know, in the last few years the European opinion on Islam and Muslim countries has changed. The reason for my performance was to question and discuss the situation of Muslim women living in Austria who are affected by the racist climate in the public space, who experience discrimination in everyday live and whose images, for example prior to elections, are abused. As persons living in Europe, often with foreign nationalities, these women, as well as myself, with or without a headscarf, represent neither Turkey, the Iran, or Afghanistan nor any other country or Islam itself. Even so, they often serve as targets. The majority of Muslim women living in Europe, with or without a headscarf, first and foremost, represent their individual selves and not religious or nationalist ideas.
“Undressing” (2006) emerged as a response to increased Islamophobia in the West after 9/11. In post 9/11 society the stigma and prejudices in the West towards those that come from the Middle East often overrides the truth of the actual individual in front of them. The image of the Muslim woman, in particular, was consumed by radical right political parties in Europe, leaving them devoid of identity---simply a caricature. If your country of origin has been branded an Islamic society, being a veiled or unveiled woman does not make a difference. In this video, as she takes off layer upon layer of veil, Güreş speaks to the individuality, identity and autonomy of women from Islamic countries, outside of religious and nationalist ideologies. As she undresses or takes off one veil, there is yet another beneath it and on and on. She says, ‘I chose “undressing” to function as a reverse analogy.’ Each new layer of veil is a new fabric, has a new story and association or history, and is therefore unique and individual.
Description: During this video performance, the artist uncovers each layer she wears on her head, uttering the names of women she lived with, thus carrying the biographical experience of daily life into this locally and internationally politically charged topic. The work was produced as a reaction to post-9/11 Islamophobia, especially that targeting women during a period in which anti-immigrant groups in Europe used “the covered thus disempowered” Muslima figure to justify their racist politics. It unravels the Vienna and Istanbul-based artist's potential to position herself looking from here to there and there to here, a potential that enables her to pass beyond limited geographical borders in her conceptualization.
Undressing Installation, Europe Day Celebrations - Towards a New Community (2021, Israel)