Susan Hefuna, b. Germany, 1962Woman behind MashrabiyaEgypt (1997 and 2004)C-print mounted behind Ple

Susan Hefuna, b. Germany, 1962
Woman behind Mashrabiya
Egypt (1997 and 2004)
C-print mounted behind Plexiglas
[Source]

Brooklyn Museumsays:

Born into a mixed Muslim/Christian, German/Egyptian dual family in 1962, Hefuna’s cross-cultural heritage is shared through her energy as a multimedia professor in Stuttgart, Cape Town and Cairo… 

Her interest then lies in transcending labels, and in creating art that is spiritual, timeless, open-ended, one that overcomes boundaries, categorization and cliche’s. This is seen most clearly in her photographic series, which conjure up a distant world of colonial Egypt, scenes of everyday ordinariness made exotic. 

Hefuna’s photographs invite the viewer to look through the mashrabia windows that serve the privacy of women in their household. A meeting point between liberal and conservative cultures as the speculator dares to looks inside. Images of Cairo today appear grainy and rudimentary, as if pictured at the birth of photography itself. Cityscapes are inexplicably printed in negative, whilst others taken of architectural detail on the streets of Cairo resemble the early darkroom experiments of Man Ray.