Muazzez 1998 by Céline van Balen

Celine van Balen was born in Amsterdam in 1965,

In 1998 photographed a group of young Moroccan and Turkish girls wearing headscarves, Van Balen took these photographs to show the viewer the individual personalities each person has by taking portraits of the girls how they were without changing anything about them for the photograph. The photographs put across the intercultural aspects ‘Her series of close-ups of eight youths in Berlin reminds us that the contemporary city is a melting pot of various cultures.’

Celine Van Balen’s work might have also showed how women are important and how they should be treated equally by showing the individual girls as pure, clean and innocent.                                                                                                   

The image above of the Moroccan girl is captured on a close up with her headscarf showing her facial expression, which reflects her identity and culture. ‘With this in mind, the work of Celine Van Balen and her Muazzez Series she explores and utilizes the deadpan aesthetic experimenting with its potential to express identity from a more anthropological stance. By doing this Van Balen explores the beginning of the formation of identity in terms of physical appearance, which is what we (the viewer) notice first about a person.’ (Contemporary Themes II – Photography As Contemporary Art, Amy Youngs)

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Reference:

Contemporary Themes II – Photography As Contemporary Art, Amy Youngs. (http://amyyoungs.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/contemporary-themes-ii-photography-as-contemporary-art/)