[BA Fashion Artbook] MALU: A Journey of Self, Shame & Sensuality

MALU

Dearest reader,

I often ponder over the lessons learned throughout my childhood through to adolescence. Beneath the folds of every word uttered and moment lived, I uncover just a little bit more of myself. They never really stuck to me until I began to discover stories through my own photographs.

I seldom saw myself in others - or at least in images of other Malay-Muslim women. This body of work comes from a place of visualising a new identity for the contemporary Malay-Muslim woman, through exploring the quality of sensuality tucked away in the Collective Unconscious. I feel an urgency to work through the generational shame we've inherited, to reclaim and reconstruct Her.

Documented and real; fictitious and staged; my images embody intimacy and sensuality. I use the tools of movement, portraiture, fashion and emotion to enhance my message of a sensual Malay-Muslim woman.

Within each image, the perspective of the female gaze is accentuated through motion and styling. While the transformational power of clothes is a key element in my work, I thread between modesty and sensuality as a subtle reminder of the ways in which women like myself are still perpetuated as symbolic bearers of the MalayMuslim collective's identity and honour. This sometimes makes us unable to move through the real world as freely and unapologetically as we would like.

Malu is an ode to women. A declaration of all the faces we wear and of the bodies we do not share - a supercut of who we once were, are and who we could be.

If my words hold power, know this You are here, that life exists and identity.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, let Her out. love, irissa kai

I dedicate this book to the strong, strong women that have shared a piece of their soul with me.

a n o s r e p

w o d a h s

a m i an us m i n a

f l se

MANDI