“In ‘Freedom Fighters’, Jabre Jureidini questions the Burqa and the Hijab without the need to confine women into categories, whether their choice falls in line with hers or is drastically different from it. She investigates the Burqa as a symbolic and graphic representation of a façade. She experiments with this shield by taking a walk in these women’s shoes and questions whether religious signs have risen exponentially to fill the empty gaps in people’s confused identities. She questions whether false interpretations and prejudice against Islamic doctrines have been highly manipulated through the Burqa as a visual choice. Her artworks highlight possible repercussions of these manipulations that dominate our current political and social arena. Her approach stems from curiosity, not judgement, a desire, not sympathy, which allows for a more nuanced approach to this complex phenomenon. “Let us save our sympathy to women who have no access to education and health care, to women who are forced to follow a certain protocol in dressing their own bodies. Pity and sympathy are not to be felt for a woman whose rationality led her to dress her body the way she pleases; fully covered or fully erotic is irrelevant.”

Racha Itani, Curator