Amina Zoubir's work focuses on the representation and appropriation of the female and male body in North African photographs influenced by colonisation and
ethnography. The MARKK photo collection contains a large number of these photographs, which also represent a challenge for the museum. As objects and historical
testimonies, the museum stores and preserves them. However, their origins coincide with an era of colonial and scientifically dominated European power structures and
imbalances, which are directly visible in the photographic representations of people and the images they create. Even today, uncritical reproduction, exhibition and
viewing risk consolidating these images and perpetuating the violent objectification of the people depicted.
In contrast, the strength of Amina Zoubir's work lies precisely in the fact that, through a deliberate deconstruction and refocusing of these difficult portraits and the
images they convey, the people depicted are placed at eye level as subjects, at odds with their original historical context, and are thus made and kept visible in a new
way. The serial reproduction, in the form of a collage, highlights the extremely high number of women affected by this colonial appropriation of their bodies.
Jana Caroline Reimer, Curator of North Africa, West and Central Asia Asia and Ancient Egypt. MARKK Museum am Rothenbaum. Hamburg, Germany
