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Susan hefuna
About the Artist
Susan Hefuna (b. 1962, Berlin, Germany) is a multidisciplinary artist who spends her life between Cairo, Düsseldorf and New York. Hefuna’s studies at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe were followed by a postgraduate degree in multimedia at the Institut für Neue Medien, Städelschule, Frankfurt.
In 1998, she participated in the Cairo Bienniale, where she won the International Award, and in 2013, she was presented with the Contemporary Drawing Prize by the Fondation d’art contemporain Daniel et Florence Guerlain, Paris. The artist’s works are held in many prestigious public collections including the British Museum, London; the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and New York; the Louvre, Paris; MoMA, New York; the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; and Tate Modern, London.
Hefuna’s oeuvre is characterised by her interests in the architectural and cultural structures that frame social interactions and expectations. Inspired by cityscapes and urban architecture, the artist’s geometric explorations into socio-political issues investigate the intersections between location, self-realisation and perception.
In her practice, Hefuna questions subjectivity and the existence of multiple realities between public and private spaces.
Mashrabiya – a central focus of Hefuna’s work since the late 1990s – first appeared in Arabic and Islamic architecture in the Middle Ages. Its purpose is not only decorative but also functional: it is designed to limit the view of the outside world into the interior spaces it screens. While those within can see out, the reverse is impossible. The hand-carved architectural latticework has inspired the artist in her exploration of the boundaries between the public and private, the seen and the unseen.
Her photographic series Women Behind Mashrabiya (1997–2004) is one of the first instances where the motif appears. The series, depicting screen-covered windows framing blurred images, questions notions of privacy and social transgression.
Susan Hefuna © Photo: Kristine Larsen
Courtesy the artist
WORKS IN THE COLLECTION
Susan Hefuna, "Mashrabiya Series (2)", 2004
Hand-carved wood and ink
unframed 41 x 31 cm; framed: 51.8 x 42 x 4 cm
Courtesy the artist
In 2004, Hefuna’s exploration of mashrabiya extended to handmade carvings and sculptural works. Mashrabiya Series (2) (2004) is an intricate investigation into these architectural elements that redefines the context, presenting them in a smaller sculptural form, rather than to obscure or decorate an entire window. In doing so, she accentuates their decorative, ornate aspects. By miniaturising the normally large window screens, Hefuna introduces tropes of voyeurism and urban structures.