The Controversial Persona & Artwork Of "Princess Hijab"

As Angelique Chrisafis writes for the Guardian, Princess Hijab started doing this before the French government banned the niqab from public spaces. But her artwork certainly raises many questions and provokes varied responses and emotions. She’s doing something illegal — graffiti — to highlight something illegal — wearing the veil. She’s also injecting religion into secular, consumer-oriented images. Veil-wearing Muslim women shop, but how often do they see themselves in ads? In addition, there’s an element of universality that comes through, as though the work is saying, that woman under the veil could be anyone — an intellectual, a flirt, a seductress. The nature of advertising asks that you imagine yourself in the place of the models shilling goods; Princess Hijab’s work may be asking us to consider, that could be me under that niquab.