Autobiographical Patterns 1996

Autobiographical Patterns refers to the practice, common to many Islamic countries, of henna-drawn hand designs.

Directed by Zineb Sedira

The video shows the artist almost obsessively writing an autobiographical text in French onto her own hand, until the repeated overlays of words come to resemble a mysterious, intricate, Arabesque pattern. The process of writing functions as a mark of identity, a determination to write her own subjective experience into representational narratives, to inscribe her own fiction of identity. [Overview courtesy of Lux Online]