February 21-March 10, 2019
WOMEN IN WINDOWS: A multi-part installation along Chung King Road
Curated by Zehra Ahmed
Automata is excited to be one of the storefront window sites for Women In Windows, a multi-part video installation along Chung King Road which focuses on the confluence of culture, religion and society in an exploration of female identity, debuts today,
Six American women from diverse cultural backgrounds, spanning across South Asia, the Middle East, Puerto Rico and Trinidad, will present video artworks which challenge, both in content and in context, society’s definition of femininity. Videos by Alima Lee, Arshia Fatima Haq, Gazelle Samizay, Jasdeep Kang, Muna Malik and Yumna Al-Arashi are placed throughout the windows and storefronts of Chinatown’s historic Chung King Road by Los Angeles-based curator Zehra Ahmed.
Ahmed’s vision is to redefine what it means to be a ‘woman in a window.’ Peep shows and advertisements promote a distorted understanding of a woman’s worth. They are idealized as objects of desire and vehicles for commerce, without principles, personalities or points of view. Women of color are especially subject to such objectification, whether in retail, fashion, pop culture or through the endless consumption of brown and black bodies in the media, yet they remain largely absent from this dialogue; a record well documented by the influential artist group Guerrilla Girls.
This exhibition subverts the societal notion of female-as-object and presents the experiences, feelings and intellects of six women artists of color in an unignorable public forum. Glass boxes, which so often frame their bodies, become windows into the souls and substance of these women, who show us that the multifaceted and deeply personal female perspective cannot be contained by, or simplified to, a skin-deep, male-gaze centric representation of what it means to be female.
Women In Windows is produced and curated by Zehra Ahmed and is supported by Automata Arts, Chungking Studio, Imprint Projects, The Institute for Art and Olfaction, Lisa Derrick Fine Arts, Poetic Research Bureau and Preen Inc.
IN AUTOMATA'S WINDOWS:
Jasdeep Kang Phiran Wali (The Girl Who Walks) (2019)
CHINATOWN FILM WINDOW LOCATIONS:
Alima Lee Garden (2017) Imprint Projects and Chungking Studio
Arshia Fatima Haq The Ascension (2018) Poetic Research Bureau
Gazelle Samizay Ravel (2014) Lisa Derrick Fine Arts
Muna Malik Are You Here (2019) Preen Inc.
Yumna Al-Arashi Shedding Skin (2017) The Institute for Art and Olfaction
ABOUT THE CURATOR //
Zehra Ahmed, raised in Karachi, Pakistan, is a curator, designer and creative producer based in Los Angeles, with over a decade’s worth of experience in the art and design world.
She has spent six years working as an architect in London and New York, on large scale cultural and hospitality projects located in Asia, India and the Middle East, including
the Bvlgari Hotel Beijing and the Abu Dhabi Media Center. During her time in New York, Zehra was an art and lifestyle contributor for Hyland Magazine, and was involved with producing a variety of art exhibits and events for the Rhode Island School of Design. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she managed The Haas Brothers, before starting her freelance career as a creative consultant in the art, design and hospitality space.
She has recently been working as a creative consultant and curator on the development of a new hotel brand with the HWood Group, on the production of the Sexy Beast Gala for Planned Parenthood and is collaborating with the Compton Cowboys.
AUTOMATA
504 Chung King Court
Los Angeles, CA 90012
automata-la@sbcglobal.net
Image from Jasdeep Kang’s PHIRAN WALI (THE GIRL WHO WALKS), 2019