transformations

For my final animation, I drew again on my time working in the Middle East, but this time thinking about the experiences of arabic women. In many Islamic countries, women are not permitted to expose their flesh in public, and are expected to completely cover themselves in a shapeless length of black fabric known as a chador. They are also forbidden to attend public gatherings, musical performances etc. This inspired me to make an animation about the female experience of living in a patriarchial society. I began by cutting women out of arabic text, then painted them black to suggest the gradual covering of the girl as she reaches adulthood. I used a beautiful handmade wooden box I had bought in Oman, slowly opening, then had the black clad women rising from the box, as if escaping the confines and constraints of Islamic society. As they rise, they begin to transform into, firstly moths, and then beautiful butterflies as they become lighter and freer.