Not the whole picture? Art, Islam and Feminism in America
THE NATIONAL
By Nick Leech
In January, the graphic artist Shepard Fairey tapped directly into the American zeitgeist for a second time with a series of stenciled red, white and blue posters. In the same way that Fairey’s portrait of Barack Obama, emblazoned with the word “Hope”, had become the iconic image of the 2008 United States presidential election campaign, the artist’s images of young American women bearing the slogan “We the People” captured the spirit of popular protest that accompanied Donald Trump’s inauguration. One featured a dreadlocked child while another showed a proud and defiant Latina, but it was the third, of a woman wearing the flag of the US as a hijab, that sent Fairey’s graphic protest campaign viral. [More]
By Nick Leech
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| An image of pride, dignity and openness, the poster was based on a photograph of a young Bangladeshi-American woman, Munira Ahmed, that had been taken a decade earlier near the New York Stock Exchange by the Syrian-American photographer Ridwan Adhami who, like Ahmed, had grown up in the New York borough of Queens. |
