Watch Autobiographical Patterns (1996) Official Trailer

Autobiographical Patterns refers to the practice, common to many Islamic countries, of henna-drawn hand designs.

The video shows the artist almost obsessively writing an autobiographical text in French onto her own hand, until the repeated overlays of words come to resemble a mysterious, intricate, Arabesque pattern. The process of writing functions as a mark of identity, a determination to write her own subjective experience into representational narratives, to inscribe her own fiction of identity. [Overview courtesy of Lux Online]