On seeing and being seen, self-images and self-doubt - thick body hair, brown teeth, big noses: In her multi-award-winning book published by Hanser Literaturverlage in 2023, Moshtari Hilal explores ideas of ugliness. She talks about beauty salons in Kabul as part of the US invasion, Darwin's theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian and a utopian place in the shadow of the nose. Her explorations, analyses and memories, her visual quotations and her own drawings lead us into that innermost realm where every self-image is put to the test. Why are we afraid of the ugly?
This question was also explored by Moshtari Hilal in a reading discussion with Prasanna Oommen on 5 March 2024, which was organized as part of the Lüneburg Weeks against Racism by the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg in cooperation with the Literature Office, the Halle für Kunst and the Equal Opportunities Officer Karin Fischer. In addition to reading parts and discussions, the interdisciplinary reading was also accompanied by the visual-artistic view of the author, artist and curator through pictures.