The sitara was beautiful, bright and colorful in comparison to the black abbaya, which makes you wonder why it was slowly replaced by the black abbaya. It’s said that religious leaders found the sitara to cause sins so women should never be dressed in color and instead be covered in entirely black fabric. “Sitara” was very personal to me as I am, in a sense, reminding those women of how the Yemeni woman once was. She had freedom. She laid in the grass. She wasn’t afraid. I don’t want to speak for all but “Sitara” was about helping women find more courage. Not courage to take their clothes off but rather to have a conversation about women’s rights and how a woman’s body is her body.
– Quote from photographer Ibi Ibrah in CimaMag