I’m a proud Muslim woman. I wore a headscarf for many years of my life, particularly in my teenage years. And so even though I don’t wear a veil today, wearing the veil in my artworks is important because it helps me to connect with my identity as a Muslim woman and also helps me to unpack some of the experiences I had as a teenager and as an adult.

-Cigdem Aydemir

Cigdem Aydemiris a Sydney-based artist working in the mediums of installation, performance and video art. Her socially and politically engaged art practice considers the convergence of gender, religious and cultural identities, with an interest in post-colonial and feminist issues.

Veils on Veils (I, 11 & III) resembles a shampoo commercial, yet one in which a woman (the artist) appears to be advertising headscarves made to approximate hairstyles. With a camp and kitsch aesthetic, the work builds upon the legacy of drag performance to parody and provoke Western ideals of the feminine. In Veils on Veils, the artist playfully reframes the UTS Broadway Screen as an advertising billboard, blurring the line between art, commerce and entertainment.

"I really like the idea that art can be many things at once; it’s beautiful, it’s political, it’s strange, it’s funny, it’s all of these things at once and I like to create work that’s like that as well. Often people think of my practice as activism but I’m not necessarily trying to change anyone’s opinion, I think what’s much more interesting for me is that I like to think critically - and I like my audience to think critically - about the way we behave and think and the reasons why we do the things that we do."

Veils on Veils (I, 11 & III) plays at daily intervals between other artworks on the UTS Broadway Screen.