Toward New Feminist Aesthetics: Notes about the Photography of Sarah Bahbah and Tamara Abdul Hadi

Sarah Bahbah (b. 1991) is a Los Angeles–based Palestinian/Jordanian Australian artist known for her provocative photography, which deals with themes of female sexuality, romantic relationships, and millennial angst. Bahbah’s photography style often features seductively posed subjects shot in ostentatious environments, alongside subtitles drawn from her personal experiences and writings.¹ A nod to the aesthetics of romantic French films, her “narrative photography” is meant to appear cinematic, “as though [the photos] are from a film,” and are imbued with a kinetic energy (DeFillipis 2021; Burns 2021). Bahbah gained recognition in 2015 following the release of her photography project Sex and Take Out, a playful series that featured mostly female subjects, naked or in underwear, indulgently eating takeout food in often lavish settings such as fancy hotel rooms or doughnut-filled bathtubs. Since then Bahbah has produced similarly styled photography projects, sometimes starring Hollywood celebrities or in collaboration with...