PROFILE Images - Courtesy of the artist and the Sabrina Amrani Gallery. Writer - Dalia Hashim, editor and linguist.
Amina Benbouchta: Chrysalis An affective understanding of the female voice through silence and empty spaces She is not there, the woman you see in the frame.
The deeply personal Chrysalis—which Benbouchta
The absentee’s existence and identity hinge
Sitting or standing, masked or hidden by a rug
dedicates to her lonely six-year-old self—is a
ironically on the banal objects in her remit—
or her hair, the puppet-person is always isolated,
staged attempt to fill a void; putting one thing in
things that also depend on her for purpose. She
ambiguous and composite, invoking the loneliness
place of another.
can use only what is readily available in a confined
of generations of Middle Eastern women entrenched
space both to act and to act out. Try as she may
in their invisibility in public life and its harsh division
Benbouchta describes the nexus between the
to transgress, her will is limited and relegated to
of space. This is Amina Benbouchta’s deliberate
objects, the environment and the figure in her
the brush, the cushion, the heart and so on. The
way ‘to name and shame the status of women.’ Like
work as a ‘poetry of chance.’ The intentionally
struggle in this ideological field may be that even
many feminists, she believes that the female voice
inoffensive and aesthetically pleasing images
in a realm of possibilities, our heroine remains
truly finds the space to exist in absence, silence
allow even the most cryptic messages to emerge
a stereotype.
and obscure empty spaces—hence our imagined
from a steady and subtle reading. To impose
protagonist: the absentee.
a logical and algorithmic—or ‘masculine,’ as
Yet ‘my art aims at giving visibility to what is invisible,’
she puts it—framework is radically to miss the
Benbouchta says. In the presence of duality,
That is why Benbouchta’s series Chrysalis is both
point. To extract meaning, you have to read
seeing the positive possibilities depends on your
whimsical and uncanny. The figure you see is not
the in-between, what is not said. It is affect
perspective. That fiery, almost manic, red hair and the
an individual, but a compendium of ‘characters
rather than logic that will help us to decipher
wild bush may hark back to the hysterical Freudian
that are easily identifiable by their attributes,’ she
Benbouchta’s symbolic language and to bear
woman. But they are also a tribute to women fleeing
explains. Meet her avatars: a set of archetypes of the
witness to the social control and false myths of
a male-oriented psychoanalytical reading of their
female experience ‘that evoke a puppet on a string
beauty that ensnare the woman in her daily life.
lives. We are reminded that ‘the female voice flows
obeying the puppet master.’ This series conjures
68 tribe
in spite of the devices used to contain it. The idea of
up the different stages of a woman’s life, but it is
The awkward crinoline-prison that hems in the
a moving metamorphosis, a fluid change of states,
also meant to work like a game of Tarot. Just like in
figure consumes all her faculties. The viewer is
is a metaphor of hope, of the constant possibilities
the visceral Tarot, we are encouraged to ask, ‘what
denied the intimate engagement with her that
of evolution. Movement is hope.’
does each of them stand for? Why are the characters
we crave. To look into her eyes and to sustain
hidden and faceless?’
dialogue, person-to-person, is impossible.
Chrysalis speaks of the universal condition of women;
Perhaps the choice to hide her in plain sight is
but it also speaks for all individuals suffering under
Certain objects reappear as tropes in Benbouchta’s
Benbouchta’s way of subverting the act of looking
patriarchal control, anywhere and at any time. The
art, becoming familiar like the characters seen on
itself—to drive us to understand the menace of our
gallery of faceless characters presents the viewer
Tarot cards: the Hermit, the Lovers, the Empress and
own gaze on the female body. ‘From your reaction,
with a variety and so the points of identification
so on. A few years ago, she also realised this running
I can tell that I have touched something that I
are abundant.
theme; but recognised, too, that the oversimplified
wanted to touch,’ retorts Benbouchta. Bemused
symbols of domestic life in her work—the corsets,
by the heuristic artistry at work here, I recall the
The hard outer case that encloses the chrysalis
tables, chairs and beds—were continually devoid
black mask and bear trap, and feel the puppet
is only temporary. When the butterfly finally
of a human presence.
master’s tug on my own skin.
emerges, she flies.
