CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/9/2024

Yumna Al-Arashi pays poetic tribute to her great-grandmother and an ancient tattooing practice

Yemeni-Egyptian American photographer and filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi still remembers, with longing, the unique, faded, but still highly emblematic tattoos that marked her beloved great-grandmother Aisha’s face below her lips. Now imbued with mystery, these marks were once traditional among Yemeni women. Today, as that country continues to contend with years of ongoing war and conflict, the tradition itself has also faded, along with the possibility of understanding its true meaning—both personally to the women who have partaken, and to the culture in general. In this stunning 392-page first monograph, published and beautifully designed and printed by Edition Patrick Frey, Al-Arashi presents more than 300 photographs, made in homage to Aisha, on her own journey through Northern Africa, where many women of Aisha’s generation, identifying both as Amazigh and Arab, still bear the traces of this ancient practice.