Lalla Essaydi: Crossing Boundaries, Bridging Cultures

Crossing boundaries and expanding ideas of physical and social space are not new challenges for Essaydi, as her lived experience spans divergent, locations, cultures, and ideologies. Moroccan born and raised, Essaydi became an artist after relocating from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, then France, and ultimately to the United States. This itinerant personal history has afforded her the distance and means to explore the varied dimensions of Muslim women's experiences based on those of her own, and also to challenge the boundaries that shaped her upbringing. She believes her work, with its very intimate portrayal of Moroccan women and the private spaces they inhabit, would not have been possible without distance from her homeland.