'Mwana Embe' is from the project Utendi, a body of photographic work by Omani female artist Eman Ali that examines the imagery of femininity in Lamu, an island located in the Northern Coast of Kenya, which is a uniquely preserved Muslim Swahili culture born from ancient and multiple exchanges between the Arab, Indian and East African worlds.
Verses selected from the mythic Swahili figure Fumo Liyongo‘s erotic poem ‘Utendi wa Mwana Manga’ (In Praise of the Arab Woman) shape the composition of the images. The enchanting metaphors used in the poem to support a sensual, subterranean desire informs Ali’s representations of the feminine within the boundaries of the old and current cultural constraints.