The Nightingale

Grace Ndiritu

2003 · Single-channel digital video, transferred from Mini DV tape, color, sound, 7 min. · Photographs

Before a camera fixed on her face and neck and accompanied by a recording of the Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, Ndiritu performs a hypnotic, Scheherazade-like series of gestures and movements with a piece of fabric, swiftly transforming it from turban to blindfold, from do-rag to noose to niqab. Both jubilant and unsettling, the video evokes a rapid-fire series of cultural references, counterposing the enforced modesty of the Islamic world with Western fantasies of exoticism. Ndiritu, who studied textiles at the Winchester School of Art, acquired this simple red-and-white scarf while traveling in India and carried it with her as a talisman through years of global exploration.

Artist

Grace Ndiritu

Date

2003

Medium

Single-channel digital video, transferred from Mini DV tape, color, sound, 7 min.

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of the artist, 2009