Amira
Ziyan

Through photography, I tackle issues related to social and cultural identity, and to the role of women in Druze society, the society into which I was born and I live. As a female artist, I choose to navigate between the constraints of the traditional Druze religion and my personal and artistic independence and freedom. While trying to integrate these contradicting worlds with my wish to avoid harming the values that are important to my society, even bearing in mind its conservative and patriarchal codes, I feel that I am able to draw from my work and life to shed light on these issues. In my work, I observe, revisit, and look from within at women living in our traditional society as is undergoes accelerated transformations. It is immensely difficult to convince Druze women to have their picture taken. In my work, therefore, I mainly photograph my nieces, my surroundings, and myself. The Druze population is very small and has a secret religion known only to the wise, and unknown by the rest of the people. Our holy books are called the Books of Wisdom; they revolve around God and reincarnation. The Druze faith is based on three foundations: religion, land, and respect for women. My work examines and researches these three principles from the woman’s gaze. The female body intrigues me, as our conservative society constantly struggles to control it. My work emphasizes the visible and invisible, and explores the mystery between the poles of the permitted and forbidden, profit and loss, black and white. These are the ideas that guide my photographic choices. My photographs are staged. Some contain clear symbols related to my identity, such as the image of the headless woman, which symbolizes the dignity of the woman, and the colors black and white, which symbolize traditional Druze clothing. At the same time, the black symbolizes patriarchal power and fear, while white symbolizes purity, renewal, and spirituality. Light occupies a central place in my work. In the pitch darkness of the picture, I hide the physical body to intensify the beauty of the white soap foam, which becomes spiritual and pure, and diverts the viewer's eyes from the photographed female body and towards the demands of women’s labor, particularly in Druze society. This is my way of appropriating the body, to show purity as beauty and a feminine ideal, rather than an order imposed by a patriarchal society. My photographs have the qualities of a painting; I use a long exposure, which creates a slight movement in which the "resolution" of the photo decreases, and softens the details. I trust my emotions; the picture must above all move me emotionally, and then the viewer. I often conduct interviews with people, and the construction of my photographs transpire from such conversations. My latest project, which emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, addresses the Druze belief in reincarnation. It was challenging for me to research this complex subject because I have personally been separated from too many loved ones by death. This project was shown at the Wilfred Israel Museum, where I presented a series of photographs which I made after conducting interviews with and collecting the testimonies of Druze people telling their stories of reincarnation. I gave high priority to questions that focus on the concept of "culture" as an aesthetic category for the examination and understanding of my society. The artistic and aesthetic space invites the possibility of reconciliation between nature and humanity, and creates room for voices that are not given expression in Druze society.