AMBER HAMMAD

Amber Hammad's art is a tongue-in-cheek look at the influence of popular culture in the form of childrens story books, famous works of art and even religion. Humor plays a key role in Hammad's work, and helps to diffuse sensitive, serious topics like the clash of -or the marriage of, depending of how you look at it -Christianity and Islam in her image titled Maryam. The baby-wipes (or are they diapers) change the tone of the image and make it easier to approach as a question or a suggestion, rather than a judgment or blasphemy. 

Acknowledging of the imbalance of Western pop culture on the rest of the world, Hammad manages to both comment on and question this  in a manner that again seems to come from a neutral position. About the foundation for her work, Hammad says:

"How the social, cultural and religious situations and manipulations affect one’s mindset and direct us to become who we are is a very interesting process. And my work is about these catalysts and their outcome. What we call a global village has absorbed more things from certain western culture or countries, instead of the flow of the energy to be moving both ways. Hence certain generations of certain places have been affected strangely to have formed a new culture. Which is neither indigenous, nor western but has its own identity. My initial works were about the acceptance of that identity, by using visual language which comprises of some local, some borrowed and some western concepts."