Nadia Kaabi-Linke

For Black is the New White, Kaabi-Linke staged a fashion photography shoot. Imitating a typical advert for a fake brand, a young male model wearing the kandura – traditional male Emirati clothing – is set against the Dubai skyline. The artist switches the usually light colored cotton fabric with the heavy black synthetic material of the abayas, traditional female Emirati dress. She deliberately questions the restricted gender codes in the Gulf region, thus underlining her desire for wider social transformation throughout the Arab world.

Nadia Kaabi-Linke was born in Tunis, Tunisia, in 1978. She lives and works in Berlin and Tunis. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Tunis and the Sorbonne University, Paris. She has exhibited internationally at Kunstmuseum Bonn (Germany), The Mosaic Rooms (London), and Nam June Paik Art Center (Seoul). Her work is in public and private collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), M+ Museum (Hong Kong) and the Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE).