Manchester >> Chorlton: Orientalism & Nostalgia

The portraits of women from a Chorlton Arabic dance class present a hybrid of East and West, modernity and the past. The portrait is an act of surface predicated on a paradox – that the rendering of someone’s features will somehow ultimately reveal more than their outward appearance.

Victorian portrait photography typically employed vivid artifice and uncontrolled theatricality. Masquerade, costume and performance all became elements of identity, placing it in opposition to today’s conventions. Such practices allow the subjects to reinvent and transform themselves. Complicit, the photographer adds to the illusion by applying his or her own masks and layers. ‘Mask’ may convey a screen, disguise, veil or camouflage; on one hand all that is deceitful and on the other simple games, fun, pleasure and escapism.