n.boutouchent

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Veiling As Care 1/9
Veiling As Care 2/9 
Veiling As Care 3/9
Veiling As Care 3/9
Veiling As Care 4/9
Veiling As Care 5/9
Veiling As Care 6/9
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Still from Untitled
Still from Untitled
Still from Untitled
as a continuation of the first part of the work, this piece further develops an engagement with the colonial male gaze and its lasting presence in contemporary consciousness, visual culture, and embodied experience. while the first part approaches the gaze through personal memory and embodied experience, this work turns towards the historical image archive, examining how colonial visual culture has shaped and continues to shape ways of seeing.

a colonial-era postcard from algeria serves as the starting point for an investigation into the visual economy of colonial representation. the work examines how images produce and circulate stereotypical and dehumanising representations of the swana region (southwest asia and north africa), and how these representations remain entangled with colonial and patriarchal structures of power.

the conceptual framework emerged through an engagement with the histories and mechanisms of orientalism and the ways in which they continue to inform western perceptions of the “other.” rooted in colonial expansion, from events such as napoleon’s invasion of egypt in 1798 onwards, these visual and political discourses persist in contemporary social and political debates. in switzerland, this can be seen, for example, in debates surrounding the ban on face coverings. such narratives construct racialised and gendered ideas of the “other,” legitimising forms of control, judgement, and presumed cultural superiority.

     
drawing from personal biography, the work reflects on the internalisation of this gaze and considers the body as a site of memory, violence, and resistance. through letters addressed to the women* depicted on the postcard, it asks what remains invisible within these images: which stories, thoughts, and experiences escape the frame? what happens when those who have historically been looked at begin to return the gaze?

the work does not seek to provide definitive answers, but instead creates a space for questioning and unlearning dominant modes of looking. it calls for more multifaceted and self-determined forms of representation and asks us to consider the responsibility embedded in the production and circulation of images.

this work was made possible by New Perspectives – Camera Arts goes Kornhausforum.

Untitled, 2026:
Inkjetprint on photopaper
framed, 85x120cm.
full-HD, multichannel video installation, color, no sound, dimensions variable.

Veiling as Care, 2026:
colonial postcards
framed with passepartout, 30x40cm.

exhibited in Poetics of Deconstruction – I Kiss You Today for Tomorrow and Our Gaze is Not Yours To Claim at Kornhausforum, bern. exhibited with Jiyan Céline Schmidiger, curated by Pearlie Frisch.




exhibition view



exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026
exhibitionshot, kornhausforum bern
2026


Our Gaze Is Not Yours To Claim II