photo essay: Francisco Guerrero
HIJAB ON/OFF
Francisco Guerrero
This portrait session was shot a few years ago in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with the help of a few of my local friends. As a teenager, I lived in KL for a couple of years, so it was good to be back to explore the city I grew up in.
At the time, we conceptualized the shoot I was living in Barcelona, Spain where there was a very heated debate about banning headscarves, hijabs, in public schools. Spain has recently see a boom in immigration from North African countries and these immigrants brought with them their Islamic practices.
The general western argument is that the headscarf is a symbol of the oppression that Muslim women are subjected to by their male counterparts, society and religion. I hear this argument again and again in media reports surrounding the debate. But this opinion is always voiced by non-Muslim women. On the rare occasion that a Muslim woman is asked her opinion ,they are usually looked down upon and treated as a poor ignorant immigrant who doesn’t know any better.
Personally, I know that this argument, the hijab as weapon of oppression, is not always correct. Though I do not argue that the condition of women in all Muslim countries is one of pure equality with their male counterparts, and in fact, the condition of women’s equality globally, is still in need of our attention.
We invited 9 Muslim women to drop by our studio for a shoot and asked them to bring their Hijabs along. We informed them that we wanted to photograph them with and without the headscarf.
Spending the day shooting and talking to these women was a great experience. All the women were from middle to upper middle class backgrounds, most were working professionals, and a couple of students. We tried our best to get a broad a sample as possible, though we are in no way saying that the images are representative of Malaysian Muslim women as a whole.
Most of these women treated the Hijab as part of their wardrobe, as a garment both charged with symbolic meaning and as a garment with practical applications. Fizzy chose to bring her prayer hijab that she wears in the mosque. On a daily basis, Fizzy chooses to not wear the hijab at all, instead usually opting for more casual clothes. The t-shirt she is wearing in the photograph is her own design, a montage of American sexy-chic machine gun images and the hijab.
What most of these women wanted to express is that wearing the Hijab was mostly their personal choice and this would vary depending on the social context. One of the women explained it by comparing it to wearing one’s “Sunday best” when going to church of more formal family occasions.
Lisa, a student and heavy metal musician had a different take on the hijab. She chooses to wear it at all times, more in line with orthodox Islamic practice, and likes to mix it in with her heavy metal inspired outfits. She wears it during her shows as well.
Intan showed up with a burka and explained that she had bought it while in Afghanistan on a UN mission as a volunteer. At the time she did not have a choice, she was obligated to wear the garment when in public. But what really struck me while talking to her was that she saw a very practical aspect to the Burka. For Intan, the Burka after a few days, became a very practical way of avoiding the heat and dust of Afghanistan.
The Hijab on or off? These nine women expressed a wide variety of opinions on the hijab as a garment, as a symbol and as a practical fashion accessory.
FRANCISCO GUERRERO was born in the Philippines in 1975 to Spanish and Filipino parents. He grew up living around Southeast Asia in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Francisco attended the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and holds a BA in Anthropology and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He currently works for a number of corporate and editorial clients. After 12 years in Barcelona he has recently moved back to Manila. Francisco is represented by Wonderful Machine. www.francisco-guerrero.com.