Autobiographical Patterns

Autobiographical Patterns (1996)

Autobiographical Patterns refers to the practice, common to many Islamic countries, of henna-drawn hand designs.

The video shows the artist almost obsessively writing an autobiographical text in French onto her own hand, until the repeated overlays of words come to resemble a mysterious, intricate, Arabesque pattern. The process of writing functions as a mark of identity, a determination to write her own subjective experience into representational narratives, to inscribe her own fiction of identity. [Overview courtesy of Lux Online]

Date of release
1996-01-01
Director
Zineb Sedira

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