So MoMA, and my lovely friend Paola,
invited me to talk to you today about the veil, because earlier this year
our magazine focused completely on the veil, particularly the burqa.
And we looked at women artists, most of them were from the Middle East,
who were using the veil as an object in their artistic practice.
And what was interesting about these women artists were that they weren't interesting
in engaging this predictable question about the Western gaze on the veil.
And they certainly weren't even interested in continuing a conversation,
this binary question of is the veil a symbol of oppression or
is a symbol of religious freedom?
They found those to be the easy questions actually.
What they were interested in was something much more provocative.
They were interested in a counternarrative.
They were interested in lifting the veil out of a state of victimhood and
looking at how it can be used as a tool of sabotage.
And so speaking of language,
I wanted to remind us what the definition of sabotage is.
And that is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an institution
through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction.
And so I wanted to share with you three of those contemporary artists and
how they are using the veil as a tool of sabotage.
This is Mariam Magsi, one of my favorites from the issue.
And Mariam is Pakistani-born, but currently works in Toronto,
and lives in Toronto, and
bore witness to that vitriolic debate last year in Canada's election to ban the veil.
She grew up in the culture of women that did veil.
And her practice, her work,
is about representing LGBTQ communities who wear the veil.
And I'd like to share with you in her own words what her practice is about.
Mariam Magsi says, for queer Muslims,
closeted due to fear of alienating family and immense societal pressure,
I look at how several of the LGBTQ community, in Iran, for example,
or Saudi Arabia used a niqab and burka to express taboo love in restrictive and
policed societies where their actions are considered deviant and punishable.
See what's interesting and provocative about Mariam Magsi's work
is she's actually not interested in the veil itself.
She's more interested in the subversive bodies underneath the veil and
how those bodies are able to express a range of gender and
sexual identities because of the veil, not in spite of it.
Next is Princess Hijab.
And Princess Hijab is a Paris-based street artist who tags ads in the city's
metro stations, especially those ads that feature scantily clad women's bodies,
which I think at this point in our culture are all ads.
[LAUGH] And she uses, if you look at closely,
she uses a very pedestrian tool to do so.
She uses a simple thick black marker to veil these women in black.
And again, I'd like to quote the artist in her own words
about why she chooses to veil these women in this ads.
Princess Hijab says, I choose the veil because it does what art should do.
It challenges, it frightens, and it reimagines.
And I think what she's challenging us to ask is a very simple question.
And that is, when, and why, and
how do we continue to normalize the hypersexed body,
to normalize the hyper-sexualized body, but
it is the covered body that jars us?
It is the covered body that stops us and gives us pause.
And finally, this is Behnaz Babazadeh.
And yes, that is cotton candy on the right.
And Behnaz is an artist and designer and
a graduate of the Parsons School of Design here in New York.
So she thinks very critically about the marriage of fashion and design,
down to its very micro-level, meaning the thing, the substance, a thing is made of.
And Behnaz spent her childhood in Afghanistan and Iran and
had a positive relationship with the veil.
And she speaks very candidly though about an experience she had while
at Parsons of putting on the burka and going into her school and
also walking through Times Square.
As you can imagine, the response was hostile.
The response was vitriolic.
And it left really, really strong impression on her.
So in response she questioned, what if I made veils and
burkas, but changed the substance of the thing?
So she created these burkas using sweet things, Fruit Loops, and gummy bears,
and sugar cubes, and on the left, red licorice, and on the right, cotton candy.
And what she's asking us to really think about is,
if we changed the substance of a thing,
if we changed a material of the thing, can we also change its meaning?
Can we strip it of its politics?
Can we strip it of its vitriol?
And in her case she could.
Because when she experimented with these veils on and
these burkas on, she enticed people.
She drew people to her as opposed to repelling them.
And so to come back to this question of what we've all been debating here today,
is fashion modern?
And in this case, is the veil modern?
I think yes.
Because what can be more modern, more revolutionary,
than taking back the very thing that's become a tool of fear and
othering and using it as a tool to sabotage that very fear?
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]