Since the events of 9/11, the “I Love NY” insignia — with its red heart and black type-face letters against a white background — has morphed from a snappy little marketing design into a display of pure Americana — T-shirt patriotism. Instead of wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we wear them smack dab in the center on our chests.
So it is a little startling to walk into the Aron Packer Gallery in the West Loop and find this iconic logo emblazoned on a white canvas burqa.
A burqa (or burka), that all-encompassing swath of fabric worn by women in Afghanistan, has come to represent, symbolically at least, the oppressive regime of the Taliban — and by extension, Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist cells, who were granted a safe haven in Afghanistan in the years leading up to the attacks against the United States in 2001.
The message gleaned from this display of 24 cloth burqas is hardly subtle. In fact, the collection, called “American Burqa,” devised by Los Angeles-based artist and screenwriter Sean Sorensen, trades specifically in visual oxymoron. The show, which runs through Aug. 23, also features burqas embossed with the logos of McDonald’s, the Chicago Cubs, Starbucks and Shell Oil. A red, white and blue stars-and-bars version is part of the exhibit, as well.
“America didn’t invent the burqa, but maybe this is what would happen if we did,” says 31-year-old Sorensen. “We take over Afghanistan, and then we take over Iraq, and it doesn’t seem that far of a leap to think that certain things about American capitalism will insinuate themselves into the lives of these people.”
Psychedelic mini-burqa
Not all of Sorensen’s designs are overtly political. Some are stylistic jabs at gender norms. The show includes a mini-burqa, which stops at the mid-thigh, made out of psychedelic patterned fabric, a rubber fetish burqa and a Hawaiian print burqa.
And then there is the one made of fabric stamped with images of Marilyn Monroe: “I liked the idea of combining this symbol of modesty with this icon of sexuality,” Sorensen says.
Coincidentally, burqas are at the forefront of another local artistic endeavor. Tony Kushner’s play “Homebody/Kabul” — much of which takes place in Afghanistan, circa 1998 — is currently running at the Steppenwolf Theatre through Aug. 31.
The moving tableaux conjured in this production — specifically, those of women gliding across the stage like ghosts, hidden under yards of sky blue rayon — resonate as much as anything that is said among the characters.
The burqas used in the Kushner show are, in the words of Steppenwolf costume shop manager Caryn Klein, “the real deal.” Working with costume designer Mara Blumenfeld, Klein says, “we were originally going to try to make them by hand, but then one of those wonderful flukes occurred.”
Klein happened to wander into a shop in Elmhurst called From Other Lands that sells South Central Asian textiles, rugs and other “upscale Afghan stuff.” She struck up a conversation with storeowner and Afghan native Ahmad Farid Wardak, who offered to procure actual burqas from Afghanistan. He ended up importing 12, and also obtained clothing for the male characters, including woolen shawls, turbans and the beaded, colorfully embroidered caps that play a central role in the first act.
But it is the burqas — with their accordion pleats and crocheted mesh eye screens — that truly stand out as three-dimensional metaphors.
“Everyone in the costume shop tried one on,” says Klein. “Just to see what it is like. Imagining the world through those eyes. It was very humbling. We all just thought, `Oh well, nobody’s wearing these anymore.'”
In fact, the majority of women in Afghanistan continue to wear the burqa, for myriad reasons. Though burqas were mandated under the Taliban, their use goes back many centuries and has a complex history.
Once a status symbol
Early on, the garment was worn by wealthy women as a sign of their status. “It was used like a parasol — to protect them from the sun,” according to Klein. Burqa use has since ebbed and flowed depending on changing political tides.
Wardak, who immigrated to the United States in 1988 when he was 18, says, “It is important to understand that Islam does not require women to cover their faces. They only have to cover their heads.” (Many Muslim women prefer to wear a hijab, a scarf that covers the head and neck.)
In the 1970s and ’80s, according to Wardak, “most women in the city did not wear burqas. The women who wore them came from villages.” Less cosmopolitan women, he says, felt a certain level of comfort and safe anonymity under the burqa.
But in the 1990s, Kabul was a city plagued by violence, particularly against women. “So the Taliban said, to eliminate the crime, to secure the society, women must wear the burqa,” Wardak says matter-of-factly. “Personally, I do not like burqas. But any transition in Afghan society has to be gradual. That’s why women continue to wear them right now.”
In a sense, the burqa is the ultimate cultural conundrum; part safety blanket, part tool of oppression. And for many Americans, the garment itself can provoke a visceral reaction.
Hossein Khandan, an Iranian filmmaker who moved to Chicago seven years ago, has spent the last 18 months working on “American Burqa” (unrelated to Sorensen’s exhibit), the cinematic equivalent of a psychology experiment. The film tracks the experiences of three local women who don burqas for an entire day.
“The Taliban really abused the Muslim culture,” Khandan says, “and I felt I had to try to find a way to use my medium — film — to express the suffering of these women. I want Americans to have an understanding of it.”
Renee McGinnis, an artist and part-time news producer with WGN-TV, was one of the women who participated in the film. Though she asked permission from her bosses to wear the burqa and be filmed while performing her duties at the TV station, her request was denied. “It was only a few months after 9/11, and things were so sensitive,” McGinnis says.
Not a pleasant experience
Spending most of her day under the burqa proved to be an uncomfortable experience.
“You’re smelling your breath all the time,” she says flatly. “The fibers and threads get in your eyes, and walking up stairs is really hard to do it without tripping on the fabric.”
A portion of the film follows McGinnis as she walks down Michigan Avenue. “People in Chicago will smile at you on the street. But under the burqa, all I got were dead stares. Though I should tell you every single taxi stopped and wanted to pick me up.”
(Khandan is waiting to hear if his film will be part of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival in October. For more information, go to www.americanburqa.com.)
The burqas worn by McGinnis and the actors in “Homebody/Kabul” are the typical one-piece style used in Afghanistan. But the garments in Sorensen’s show differ slightly in their construction.
“I searched a few sites on the Internet and found a design that I wanted to work with,” Sorensen says. He settled on a burqa that has three components: a hood, a tunic and a loose-fitting tent dress. In fact, the hood, with its slit exposing the eyes, vaguely invokes an altogether different, but equally unsettling image: that of a Klansman.
“I did everything but sew them together,” says Sorensen. “I hired a tailor to do that part. And when he finished the job, he gave me this funny look, and said something like, `Hey man, are you in the KKK?’ That was, um, pretty uncomfortable.”
But, he continues, “If art isn’t memorable, it’s worthless. Is it my burqas that are ridiculous or just burqas in general?”
Incidentally, Sorensen’s burqas are for sale, at $600 a pop.
“I’m your one-stop burqa shop,” he says, half-joking, half-serious. “I take care of all your burqa needs.”
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Sean Sorensen’s “American Burqa” exhibit is part of a group show called “Politics As Usual,” through Aug. 23 at the Aron Packer Gallery, 118. N. Peoria St.; 312-226-8984. “Homebody/Kabul” runs through Aug. 31 at the Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; 312-335-1650. From Other Lands is located at 210 N. York Rd. in Elmhurst; 630-530-7767.
