A feminist perspective with Zanzibar's walls

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The architecture in Stone Town delights me, unlike in Dar where I reside. Particularly in Old Stone Town, there's a real presence of town planning. With buildings rich in history from the doors with the horns inspired by Indian Culture; to the inner squares and arched hallways reminiscent of Middle East and Mediterranean cultures. 

Nonetheless as a native Tanzanian, I’ll be naive to just appreciate this landscape without bearing in mind. In the hay day of their inception our ancestors of black skin, were treated like filth here, seen as second class citizens and treated like slaves.

During the ZIFF festival last month, I chanced on a photo exhibition that delighted me in its portrayal of the present day Zanzibarian voice. This at the ‘Maru Maru’ hotel, the works are by Zanzibar’s photographer and filmmaker Shams Bhanji. The exhibition titled ‘Surreal beauty and degradation’ was mounted on the surrounding four walls of the hotel's small piazza from the 19th to the 26th July selling at $50 each. 

While walking from photo to photo, I was captivated by the way the pieces took a translucence of water borders.In muted colors with amicable contrasts times amplified by shards of bold colors like red. All the works depicted a shadowy figure of a female melded with the coral walls of Zanzibar dating back 150 years plus. In some pieces one has to look real close to see the girl/woman. 

This investigation is symbolic to looking for the individual behind the fabrics of Zanzibarian folk. Shams goes on to explain of his exhibition “The subject matter is kind of a philosophical investigation into the nature of beauty and the perception of beauty, bearing in mind the context of a rigid society with strong traditional, moral, and cultural values that can sometimes lead to repression and self-degradation.”

I was touched that a man could depict the fabric of women’s psyche through photograph so well. That he picked women as his subject also quite telling, after all  'mother' is the bedrock of any society. He invites us to see the different facets of the feminine in Zanzibar; like how the lady subjects represent the cultural diversity of race in the region.

The portrayal of this ‘rigid culture…’ which Shams sheds light on in these works. I related from knowing how females in this region and also in mainland. Is really only allowed to experience her freedom in private as though publicly she's not good enough. For true to form it's still the case in Tanzania that many women aren't free to speak their minds, wear whatever they choose, date/marry who they want, study to the levels they desire or inherit and own land. 


Shams in this exhibition asks the Zanzibarian folk to ponder on these questions. With his use of the old buildings inviting them to connect the dots of their history. Culminating in what is now their own tribe, a society which in order to evolve further. Has the resource with its shared triumphs; to weave a tapestry of a Zanzibar that perpetuates the surreal beauty of its islands through an elevated people.