VEILED | women who choose to wear a niqab

It’s one of the most controversial garments in the western world: the niqab, a veil that covers the entire face apart from the eyes. Laws banning the garment have already been introduced in several countries, and niqabi women who are still allowed to wear it meet a lot of hostility on the streets. Who are the women who choose to wear this piece of cloth, despite all the controversy? What do they find funny, beautiful? What is femininity to them? Would they differ much from me: a non-believing woman? Driven by this curiosity I spent three years in the search for niqabi women. I photographed them the way I got to know them. Not as the ‘black box’ many people take them for, but as colourful individuals, for instance showing the garments they prefer to wear at home with their families. Gradually I also discovered how much these pictures told about myself. They reveal what had surprised me, and therefore undeniably, what my expectations had been.