woman on her knees bending her body back, with her hands on her feet, looking up; woman wears purple blouse and slacks and blue-grey hijab with red dots and black flowers; end of woman's hijab curls upward forming the tail of a small dragon with orange wings with red spots; two circles made up of handguns in URC in grey and red, with faint repeating outlines of circles of handguns in background

%C2%A9 Ambreen Butt. All rights reserved.

Untitled (Woman/Dragon), 2008

expand_more
Not on Viewexpand_more

Ambreen Butt’s “Daughter of the East” memorializes the scores of young women and girls who died in a violent confrontation between Islamic fundamentalists and the Pakistani military during the July 2007 siege of Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, a conservative center of religious teaching in Islamabad. Most victims were students at the nearby Jamia Hafsa madrasah complex. The mosque’s clerics opposed the Pakistani government’s social and economic liberalization and called for the overthrow of President Pervez Musharraf and the imposition of traditional sharia law. Inspired by the tradition of Indian and Persian miniaturists, Butt created a series of highly detailed images that, paradoxically, are both decorative and disconcerting. This seeming contradiction mirrors the event’s complicated narrative of fear, violence, vulnerability, and resilience among the women and girls who remained true to their religious beliefs but were reportedly used as human shields by armed male defenders of the mosque.

file_downloadprintshare
arrow_back home
Details
Title
Untitled (Woman/Dragon)
Artist Life
Pakistani (active United States), born 1969
Role
Artist
Accession Number
2018.38.2.2
Provenance
Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, N.H. (publisher); sold to MIA, 2018.
Curator Approved

This record is from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator, so may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@artsmia.org.

Does something look wrong with this image? Let us know

woman on her knees bending her body back, with her hands on her feet, looking up; woman wears purple blouse and slacks and blue-grey hijab with red dots and black flowers; end of woman's hijab curls upward forming the tail of a small dragon with orange wings with red spots; two circles made up of handguns in URC in grey and red, with faint repeating outlines of circles of handguns in background

© Ambreen Butt. All rights reserved.

Because of © restrictions, we can only show you a small image of this artwork.