SHINING A LIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHER-BLOGGER ALIA YOUSSEF TAKES ON “MONOLITHIC STEREOTYPES” ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN
Alia Youssef has just wrapped up her first gallery show – exhibiting 16 of the 160 portraits of Muslim women that make up The Sisters Project at the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto. But it’s the blog of the same name she’s most proud of.
“I’ve worked as a portrait photographer since I was 14, so when I heard a classmate talking about how she was tired of the media painting all Muslim women with the same brush – all 85 million of them worldwide – I realized I had a skill set that could combat that monolithic stereotype,” says Youssef. “From there, text and the blog became important because the storytelling is the way people are really able to connect with the subject.”
What started as a school project while studying photography at Toronto’s Ryerson University in 2016 has most recently seen Youssef cross the country, meeting and photographing Muslim women from Victoria to St. John’s, Nfld., who are working in fields including environmental activism, education and medicine.
“When I was growing up, I didn’t see any Muslim role models – the focus is always on what Muslim women wear, how oppressed they are,” says Youseff, who moved from Egypt to B.C. at age 8 and later moved to Toronto for her studies. “So this is a chance to learn about each other as well as educate the wider community about the reality of life for Muslim women.”
The 23 year-old was able to set out on her cross-country journey thanks to funding from the Inspirit Foundation, a grant-making organization that promotes inclusion and pluralism through media and the arts.
“It was fascinating visiting these cities, especially places that are not big, metropolitan cities, where Muslim populations are smaller and growing,” says Youssef. She witnessed close-knit communities and took it as an opportunity to “create more sisterhood” in the Canadian Muslim community at large.
“This project has created a space for Muslim women to connect with each other, further the conversation and see each other as role models we may never have been aware of otherwise.”
With the Sister Project, Youssef wants to broaden that conversation even further. “I would like to see the conversation move away from the niqab, the hijab, away from the scrutiny of what Muslim women are wearing,” says Youssef. “I want to shine a light on what they are doing, their accomplishments and their stories – how they are impacting their communities and contributing to Canadian society.”
THIS PROJECT HAS CREATED A SPACE FOR MUSLIM WOMEN TO CONNECT WITH EACH OTHER