Untitled No. 6, alias "The Signature"
From the series "Inhabited by Imaginings We Did Not Choose"

The thirty-six witty self-portraits of this historic series play on the tradition of colonial postcards and of ethnographic and fashion photography. The pioneering Moroccan photographer Yasmina Bouziane
presents three different figures: the Oriental woman, the modern (Western) woman and the colonial photographer. All three are present in this photograph, which, according to the artist, “encapsulates the meaning of the whole series” by pointing the camera back at the viewer. The artist deconstructs colonial imagery by challenging the assumption that photography is documentary. She takes advantage of the procedures formerly used to fictionalize the history of colonized people, using bizarre props, such as cowboy boots, to draw attention to the artificial studio setting of the photographs.