“It was in college that I began to find myself in art.” It was during this period that Halah chose the artistic path and made it her academic major. A choice of heart. In a country where art and culture weren’t not really valued at that time, this path seemed blocked. The only outlet for artistic studies was teaching. And the positions weren’t numerous.
Despite the social pressure, she holds her ground. “Until my last year of school, my father told me it wasn’t too late to change direction,” she says, aware that a form of benevolence was behind this discourse. But the young woman believed in herself and didn’t give up. She had no doubt that one day this passion would take her somewhere, open the doors to “something bigger”.
For her Master’s degree, she chose Philadelphia, in the United States. It was there, thanks to a tutor who encouraged her, that she discovered photography. But when she reavealed her pregnancy, the teacher’s reaction was unexpected. She suggested that she should give up on her studies, that it was impossible to reconcile artistic education and childbearing. The young girl was in shock. But she didn’t give up. She believed in her abilities and decided to sacrifice neither her pregnancy nor her passion. By her own admission, this period “was one of the most difficult” of her life. But she was able to draw from within herself the resources necessary to surpass herself. During her last semester, her tutor backtracked and offered to coach her again. Difficult as it was, this American experience was to be a turning point in the young Saudi woman’s life. She went back home completely changed.
Openness and the cycle of change as an artistic project
This was not the first foreign experience for Halah. As a child, she followed her father through his foreign postings. Five years spent in Egypt, Mauritania and Spain. It was all these trips outside the Saudi borders that built her up. Thanks to these experiences, she sees the world and life differently.
This observation is at the origin of her first artistic project. A series of interviews with 50 Saudi women to show how life outside the borders of Saudi Arabia has also enabled them to emancipate and become fully themselves. The idea was to capture these new singular identities. And what better imprint of singularity than the eye? Halah even exhibited this work in 2018 in France, at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
The eye also represents the cycle of change. “Between 15 years ago and today, there have been great changes as never before in the history of the country”. Internal changes for women who more often dare to be themselves and not as society or their families demand. But also changes in the way of looking at art and artists. No one, including Halah, knows what the coming years will look like, but one thing is certain: with her camera she wants to accompany this change.
