Abstract :
Egyptian photography artist Nermine Hammam (b. 1967) created her controversial series, Escaton, between 2009 and 2013, to document changing social norms in an increasingly conservative Egypt. Photographing holidaymakers on a beach in Egypt, she depicts heavily veiled female bathers enjoying the sea alongside male companions. Hammam sets these images against grainy black and white photographs taken of her grandparents basking in European attire, on a similar beach, in a secular and Westernized Egypt of the 1950s. As these disparate slices of time and place cometogether, what emerges is a strong and unexpected record of sexual politics in modern day Egypt, emphasized always by the sensuality of the water surrounding the figures as a backdrop. Behind the stark differences in the outward aesthetics of dress, one becomes aware of a powerful repetition of poses across both sets of images. The central space occupied by the woman remains unchanged despite society’s growing efforts to veil and conceal her. Confident and self-possessed, the woman as wife and mother sits at the heart of each family unit holding the viewer with her powerful gaze, admitting us into her space. Men occupy the periphery of these images, leaning into the woman’s space as footnotes to her central narrative. Unexpectedly, the camera reveals acontinuum of female strength across time.
