Mai Zarkawi

Who is behind the veil?

My journey started with my trying to explore the tension, freedom, beauty, limitations, and identity that is unveiled in the niqab. I see the niqab as an identity in itself, between reality and borders. The veil is a social identity that shows religious, social, and intellectual affiliation... As a Palestinian Arab community, live under occupation, which permanently threatens our existence and identity, leading to a double identity in various forms, including one divided between freedom and restrictions, where the extension of the occupation and its policy affects the purity of social and political identity, and these divisions create people of two parts. Through this project I tried to translate this dual existence and give space to explore and define identity. I chose face jewelry as masks because it provides the space for a person to live two roles or a double life, and this identity enables one to determine his presence and behaviors according to his surroundings. One example of this is the veil, which allows the wearer two forms of identity: the external social identity, and the true inner identity that hides behind the black fabric. The masks were born from civilization, rituals, and disguises, which allowed the freedom to wear a new identity and coexist with it and through it, as a human whose first half is real and whose other half is inspired by imagination. The Face Jewelry collection allows a person to choose the identity in which he wants to appear in front of the outside world, so that his inner essence is not affected and he can exist within two worlds. Material: brass (blackened).