Artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah, of French-Algerian descent, was compelled to withdraw her installation, using Muslim prayer mats, from an exhibition in Paris after the city council received threats from a local Islamic organization. The curators and the artist removed the installation only hours before the exhibition was expected to open at Pavillon Vendome in Clichy at the end of January, after administrators warned that the installation might incite irresponsible incidents.

Bouabdellah’s artwork, called “Silence,” which was part of a group exhibition titled “Femina ou la reapproriation des modeles,” features 28 Muslim prayer mats with holes cut in the center and stilettos placed inside those holes. The artist, who has Muslim roots herself, said the installation, which has already been displayed in Berlin, New York and Paris in the past, was about proposing an idea that links sacred and profane spaces with the place of women in the world.

“The modernity of women is reconcilable with Islam, on the condition that the latter is not perverted to becoming an instrument of domination,” she explained.

Bouabdellah went on to write an open letter about the incident, after replacing “Silence” with another installation called “Dansons” (“Let’s Dance”), in which she is seen belly-dancing to the French national anthem.

“I put this misunderstanding of the work down to the highly charged emotional atmosphere after the recent events in Paris and I do not wish [it] to be used as an excuse to further nourish confusion and distress,” she wrote.

Orlan, another artist whose work was displayed at the same exhibition, called the decision to withdraw “Silence” catastrophic and an act of self-censorship. Protesting against the incident, she announced the withdrawal of her own artwork, after which guest curators Christine Ollier and Charlotte Boudon asked Clichy’s mayor to either support the display or shut the exhibition. However, when they received no response from the mayor’s office, the artists made the collective decision to dismantle the show.

This recent threat came only a few weeks after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris claimed the lives of 12 notable satirists and journalists earlier this year.

Photo Credits: Dipty K Blog