caricature artists in the arab countries

Toshfesh
Zainab Fasiki
/ زينب فاسيكي
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Morocco

Born and raised in the city of Fez, she started drawing when she was four years old. In 2014, she moved to Casablanca, where she has lived since. Fasiki joined the comic book collective Skefkef, and in 2017 published a first feminist comic strip, called Omor (Things), in which she explored the difficulties of a woman's life in Morocco. Through the characters of three young Moroccan women, she denounced the social inequalities between men and women.

Her work, which she publishes on social media and as graphic novels, criticizes censorship, taboos and notions of shame in Morocco. Apart from working freelance, she is also the founder of the collective group "Women Power" that sponsored twenty women to take part in workshops about women's rights.

Many of Fasiki's illustrations are self-portraits, often in the nude, inspired by women in the traditional Moroccan hammam or painted as comic characters like Wonder Woman. One of her well-known images is a nude, all green figure of herself keeping watch over Casablanca. Entitled The Protector of Casablanca, she sees this figure as an attempt to fight against daily harassment on the street.In her comics, the women sometimes do not have eyes, because she says that "I see women as statues in my society and I want them to be free human beings." One of her comics was based on personal experience of harassment on public transport and called "Buses are made to transport people, not to rape girls." She has also claimed that she has never felt free in Morocco or with her graphic art, where printers are reluctant to print her work. She prefers to portray women undressed, as strong and unafraid, and tries to portray women's bodies in art and media without taboo. As with her comics about sexual education that she published in Skefkef magazine, she wants to counter violence against women and the patriarchal views of women as sexual objects

المغرب

هي فنانة كاريكاتيرية مغربيّة ومُهندسة ميكانيكية وناشطة في مجال حقوق المرأة بالإضافة إلى نشاطِها في مجال تمكين المرأة والمساواة بينَ الجنسين. اشتهرت زينب من خِلال مشروعٍ لها حملَ اسم «حْشُومَة» وهو عبارة عن مجوعة فنيّة من الصور الكاريكاتيريّة الذي صدر عام 2018 والذي يُصوّر النساء وهنَ عاريات وتدعو فيهِ زينب إلى كسرِ المعايير المزدوجة وقد عُرض مشروع لأوّل مرة في مدريد بإسبانيا قبل أن يُعرض فيما بعد في الرباط. تَهدف زينب فاسقي من خِلال عملها إلى مكافحةِ الرقابة وكسرِ «المحرمات» في المغرب.

بدأت زينب الرسم عندما كانت تبلغُ من العمرِ أربع سنوات فقط؛ ثمّ صقلت مهاراتها بمرور السنوات. تُركّز فاسيكي في عملها على رسمِ صور ذاتية مُختلفة ومتنوعة كما تعتمدُ على شخصيات خياليّة مثل المرأة المعجزة. في حوارٍ معها حول رسومها الهزليّة علّقت زينب بالقول: «أرى المرأة عبارة عن تمثالٍ في مجتمعي ولذَا أريد تحريرها ... أريدهنّ أن يكنّ بشرًا أحرارًا.» تُعاني زينب في نشرِ رسوماتها داخلَ المغرب باعتبارِ أنّ العدد الأكبر من المطبعات أو دور النشر ترفضُ وتحجمُ عن طباعة أعمالها.