Alymamah Rashed

Muslima Cyborg body/Al-Jism/ (جسم) exists conceptually within the spatiality of anti-self orientalization and chromophobia, and in between internationalization and self-localization. Muslima Cyborg is not a terminology. It is a self-preserved social identity. Muslima Cyborg is established through three physical presences: the naked body, the thob, and a combination of the two.

A thob is a garment worn by Muslim women during prayer; it exposes only the face and hands. The naked body is the revealed body rather than the unclothed body. The combination of my thob and naked body is what I transfer onto the canvas.

Muslima Cyborg approaches technology as a mode of the metamorphic rather than the mechanical. Muslima Cyborg questions the fluctuation of spirituality in order to establish a renewed system of contemporary Islamic personhood.

Muslima Cyborg reveals markings of self-violence that are a way of coping with liminality. The indication of light and leakage celebrates a continual survival of Islamophobia.

Muslima Cyborg body/Al-Jism/ (جسم). Oil, paper, fabric, collage, and metal on canvas. Acrylic on rubberwood. 36 x 72 inches (each canvas), 1-1/2 in. x 10 in. x 10 in (each Rubberwood Stand).