Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

This young woman demonstrates her up-to-date fashion sense, sporting an Afro (a popular hairstyle during the late 1970s), a newly tailored outfit, and a new pair of shoes. To highlight these elements, Sitou positioned her in a squatting pose, a common West African posture. In Mali, that position is assumed while greeting familiars or eating in rural areas and markets; among the Yoruba, it is generally associated with women and is a pose a wife might take while offering her husband or visitor food or drink. In each of those contexts, the pose is a sign of humility, intimacy, and respect. Here, however, Sitou uses it as a way for the woman to assert her independence and individuality.