Contributing Artist

Farah Salem

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

Invisibly Visible explores the experience and design of the traditional Kuwaiti Abaya, a garment that has evolved into a public uniform for some Muslim women. Influenced by socio-cultural constructs, traditions, and religion, the purpose of the garment is complex, yet rooted within sacred privacy through protecting and obscuring female sexuality. However it has served the opposite as it has become a visibly regonized symbol of hidden female bodies as well as politically sigmatized icon. Artworks created and curated by Farah Salem (MFA 2019) capture the garment in spaces of silence reflecting on its ability to silence the presence of the body while also becoming an object louder than that silence by speaking its untold stories.The exhibition and programing invite viewers to investigate the socio-political complexities of the Abaya.