Nadia Benchallal is very clear in what she wants her photographic essay to accomplish: she wishes to "explore how the women are becoming emancipated and modernized while keeping their culture and traditions in conservative societies." She also wants to go "beyond the stereotypes" and to "build a bridge between cultures and within the Muslim world itself."

The slideshow below is a sample of some of Benchallal's photographs from "Sisters", to give a taste of her collection. Place your mouse over the photographs and scroll to the right to see the slideshow. 

Her photographs are not accidental results of releasing the shutter; she has deliberately authored these images in order to tell a story. The focus of Benchallal’s story is very much on women. Everything from title of her project, “Sisters”, to the fact that it is old women, mothers, teenage girls and children who dominate her photographs underpin the feminine flavor of her work. After the presentation, a man in the largely female-dominated audience jokingly asked Benchallal if she would ever do a project on ‘brothers’. As Benchallal herself said, however, she is “completely fascinated by women” because they often are the ones with the untold stories. “We don’t hear them,” Benchallal stated, “They are silent.”