In her lyrical representations of the female body, Lalla Essaydi employs a visual language rooted in her childhood in Morocco, where public spaces were defined by men, and women were confined to the private region of the home. In her photographs, women literally become part of the space they inhabit: she covers them in Islamic calligraphy that extends to the walls, furniture, and drapes, or garbs them in marvelous patterns that merge into surrounding mosaics.

As a contemporary artist, she also contests sexualized Western stereotypes of the harem seen in nineteenth-century Orientalist painting. “In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as liberal, as Muslim,” she says. “In short, I invite the viewer to resist stereotypes.”