The project “Awrah عورة” takes the book “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger as a starting point, where the author studies the representation of nude female bodies in paintings (ex: Botticelli, Manet...) and in advertising images. I stumbled upon the book in a private library to find out that all nude paintings, drawings and photographs were censored, and the sensitive body parts were hidden by white stickers when the book was checked by Qatari customs. This act of covering the images distorted the essence of the book as more than 50% of it consists of images

Ancient Arab scientists (ex: Avicenna, Arrazi) studied Human body. In fact, how Islam looks at sex and the body is worth mentioning, as according to the exegesis of the VII century Al-Qotbî: "what God created first in man is his sex" which means that it is the beginning of creation. Nevertheless, contemporary Arab society still holds a negative perception of the body; 
as there is still a direct connotation between the female body and taboo in the Arab world as it is still thought of as Awrah (nakedness). 

This project is an attempt to address the representation of the nude female body in contemporary Arab societies. I try to question how nudity is perceived and whether the creation of a universal and personal image of the body is possible. All through a research on the female body in art history, and how the act of censorship directed towards a taboo (nudity) triggers more curiosity to unravel what is hidden.