#SPECCHIO: 30 Q’S WITH MARIA MAHFOOZ | MARIA MAHFOOZ

In 2018, video artist and VP Joe Sabia, from the creative section of Condé Nast, gives life to the very successful series 73 Questions With… for Vogue. Each episode centers on a single celebrity, who is asked quick questions – 73 precisely – and usually takes place in their lavish mansions, where Sabia follows the show’s personalities speaking from behind the camera. In 2019, the Pakistani-born English artist Maria Mahfooz appropriates the format created by Sabia and makes a parody entitled 30 Questions With Maria Mahfooz (2019).

In her version, the artist created a surrogate digital representation of herself and set the video in the streets of Manor Park, London, engaging in an act of reformulation and re-enactment of some cultural stereotypes as evidence of her identity dislocation. The questions that Mahfooz poses to his digital counterpart initially seem trivial, but gradually become more and more personal to investigate forms of racial abuse and prejudices rooted in contemporary society, as well as bringing out the duality of the artist’s cultural background.
If in the Vogue videos the question “can you show us around?” usually follows a tour of the villa of the star of the moment, Maria Mahfooz takes us among the stalls of the commercial activities of Manor Park, a district located in north-east London where a large Pakistani and Bangladeshi community lives. The tone of the interview becomes darker when Maria’s digital counterpart admits the possibility of being a victim of so-called hate crime, and how often she receives racist insults because of her culture and her hijab.

The artist uses a variety of linguistic registers and irony as a tool to talk about their experiences in the face of the cultural barriers that people often tend to erect when faced with Muslim people. As Maria says during an interview with Jyni Ong for It’s Nice That, “I often employ humour within my work, not only for the sake of accessibility, but also because sometimes more can be said within the work if the intro seems like a joke. I use satire as a way of dealing with the dislocation I can feel, so the work sometimes feels more digestible but still generates reactions of uncertainty about whether to laugh or not?”.  30 Q’s With Maria Mahfooz appropriates internet culture and self-representation practices to create a space for negotiation in which to reflect on the concept of identity, culture, society. Maria Mahfooz’s avatar becomes a mirror of the prejudices of the non-Muslim community but at the same time a lens through which to observe ways of self-representation that use autobiographical performative practices.

Maria Mahfooz
30 Q’s With Maria Mahfooz, 2019
digital video, color, sound, 2’ 48”
Commissionato da DAATA Editions

05/11/2022