The Postcard Series was created in response to the practice of creating postcards discussed in “The Colonial Harem- Images of Suberoticism” by Alloula. The reading discusses the gaze of European men on semi-nude Algerian women. There was a recurring theme in the postcard images presenting the obsession in these men of unveiling these women. The postcards were described as the fertilizer for the colonial vision, giving men a cheap image of what they could have if they came to take these other-wordly places and “help” the uneducated people there. This provided me with the idea of reversing the gaze in the postcard. The postcard represents an idealized look of a place far away, meant to be sent to someone else and show what they could have or be a part of as well. The images are often poor both in their quality and physically, embodying the “poor-man’s fantasy.” The reading provided images of women in Algeria partially unclothed, so in my series I chose to appropriate the images and insert my own hands into a new photo for a series of new postcards. The new photographs include nature, a veil, the original postcards, shadows, and my hands. My hands, as the artist, are used to hold, cover, and re-veil the women in order to show the collective effort of women protecting women. Postcards are supposed to be casual and simple, but in examining the images, I respond to the light-hearted stock paper souvenir by inserting a political discourse about foreign identities and the problems of colonization. In the past, my work has looked into colonization and identity and this work furthers that research by working to give back power and reclaim respect to women who had theirs taken away.