Lina Hashim
Lina Hashim is a Danish-Iraqi artist who lives and works in Copenhagen. Hashim was born in Kuwait, however later on moved to Denmark with her parents in 1992. Hashim’s primary artistic medium is photography, whereas her methods cross into such fields as anthropology and performance. Hashim as a former student of anthropology puts the methods of anthropology to use when she investigates, amongst other issues, the Islamic dogma of pre-marital sex. Her research draws thoroughly on her readings of the Quran, consulting imams, her family, and a number of chatrooms and online forums for Muslims. At the core of Lina Hashim’s artistic project lies an urge to investigate, rationalize and document the arbitrariness of the way the Quran is being interpreted today using what she describes as a method best understood as historical anthropology: Do the words and dogmas of the Quran make sense in a modern context? She firmly states that she is a Muslim as she believes in Islam, but she doesn’t practise.
NO WIND WITH HIJAB
Hashim began this series in 2012 photographing women’s hair, normally hidden from public view under a hijab, a scarf that covers her head concealing all her hair in the public domain. The hijab is seen as a way to protect these woman, keeping them as a treasure; for Lina to photograph them without this cover – a commandment of God – would be considered a sin in Islamic tradition. Lina’s inspiration came from the memories of how her mother and friends changed when they removed their hijab, filling her with curiosity to photograph women’s hair and chronicle the length of time they had covered it. In order to make the photographs she envisioned, allowing the women to reveal their hair and not break their Islamic beliefs, she consulted a number of Imam, or spiritual leaders, living in Copenhagen.
“I’m a member of a chatting space that is guided by a young Imam. He was very open, so I asked him: ‘If I go to a hairdresser and I find some hair on the floor that belonged to a Muslim girl; would it be a sin if a man sees the hair? And then he said ‘No it wouldn’t, because no-one can see who the woman is.’ Then I asked him if it would be OK to take a photo in which I don’t reveal any of the skin or any of the characteristics of the woman. And he said that it’s impossible to do that, but it would be OK. So I copy-pasted what he said in a document and showed it to all these girls I asked.”
As a viewer this suggests to how important religion is in Lina’s tradition, as the repercussions behind the truth of these women and revealing their identity to the world is a terrifying and consequential concept. Immediately framing the images to focus on the women as an a objectifying motif draws the reader in and is immediately asked to question the rate of rights that individual has. This factor can be seen most restricting, as as a women, the allowance and freedom to show off any hair in any sort of public domain is not tolerated, culturally and religiously. This percussion of Lina’s work is more so celebrated than mourned.
Inspiration
Lina’s focus on a single motif or symbol to represent an entirety of a subject has given me inspiration as to how I should focus on love. Like Stephen Gill’s “Hackney Kisses“, a single kiss represents a whole relationship, such as hair represents an entire culture and religion. In a way I could focus in on this, yet I could also focus on things such as holding of hands or something else to do with or is familiar to a stereotypical relationship.