Amina Zoubir, Escape from the body, installation view, Eva Maria Ocherbauer 2017.
Born Algeria (1983), lives and works between Paris, France and Algiers, Algeria
Escape from the body 2012
pigment print on Rag 308 fine art paper, 120X80 cm
Courtesy of the artist
The scarecrow holds a special place in the popular cultures of the whole world. Sometimes a foil, sometimes a perch; it also indicates an ugly or badly-dressed person or another object or a person of terrible appearance. This feminine body in sacred posture, set up as cross then as prostration (said Soudjoud during the muslim prayer) is presented as a scarecrow in under-construction places, of no women’s land, urban landscapes to become there, in constructions to widen the urban space of the city of Algiers (Algeria) and enlarge its suburb. Would the scarecrow be imaged with the purpose of keeping other bodies away from these spaces? The posture of this female body reveals a shift on this other body: the earth that carries us, and this imaged body supposes the reappropriation of a rough urban interstice.
