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The State of the Arts in the Middle East, Volume IV Viewpoints The State of the Arts in the Middle East: Volume IV The Middle East Institute Washington, DC March 2009 Literature, visual art, and photography not only serve an aesthetic purpose, but often act as mediums through which their creators explore deeply personal experiences and their broader social implications. In this, the fourth volume of MEI’s “The State of the Arts in the Middle East,” Najat Rahman considers the works of the Palestinian artists Emily Jacir and Eman Haram, and W. Scott Chahanovich (with Pauline Pannier) discusses the memoirs of the Moroccan-born writer Abdellah Taïa. As the essays by Rahman and Chahanovich reveal, these artists have pushed the boundaries of their respective crafts, and in so doing, have shed light on the transformational role that memory can play in shaping individual and collective identity. Middle East Institute Viewpoints • www.mei.edu Middle East Institute The mission of the Middle East Institute is to promote knowledge of the Middle East in Amer- ica and strengthen understanding of the United States by the people and governments of the region. For more than 60 years, MEI has dealt with the momentous events in the Middle East — from the birth of the state of Israel to the invasion of Iraq. Today, MEI is a foremost authority on contemporary Middle East issues. It pro- vides a vital forum for honest and open debate that attracts politicians, scholars, government officials, and policy experts from the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. MEI enjoys wide access to political and business leaders in countries throughout the region. Along with information exchanges, facilities for research, objective analysis, and thoughtful commentary, MEI’s programs and publications help counter simplistic notions about the Middle East and America. We are at the forefront of private sector public diplomacy. Viewpoints are another MEI service to audiences interested in learning more about the complexities of issues affecting the Middle East and US relations with the region. To learn more about the Middle East Institute, visit our website at http://www.mei.edu Call for Papers The arts of the Middle East are “alive” — with new artists, genres, and themes continuously being graft- ed onto old, adding shades and texture. While some of these are represented in this volume, many more are not. In the interest of providing a fuller picture of the state of the arts in the region, MEI welcomes additional essays from young and established scholars. These essays (1,000-1,200 words) must be acces- sible to non-specialists and aim to shed light on the importance of a specific artist, body of work, theme, or genre. Topic proposals will be accepted on a rolling or ongoing basis. Essays accepted for publication will be added to the current collection and published in electronic format. Please submit topic propos- als in the form of a 100-word abstract (including full name, title, and affiliation) to Dr. John Calabrese at [email protected] Cover photos are credited, where necessary, in the body of the collection. 104 Middle East Institute Viewpoints • www.mei.edu Viewpoints Special Edition The State of the Arts in the Middle East: Volume IV To read Volume I, please click here or visit http://tinyurl.com/no2s2g To read Volume II, please click here or visit http://tinyurl.com/yjp4lo4 To read Volume III, please click here or visit http://tinyurl.com/ykb8rvr Middle East Institute Viewpoints • www.mei.edu 105 Against Erasures: Memory and Loss in the Art of Emily Jacir and Eman Haram Najat Rahman The visual art of Emily Jacir, “Where We Come From” (2003), and Eman Haram’s photo exhibit, “Involuntary Memory” (2006), inscribe a memory that resists the systematic effacement of collective history, and a loss inherent in any displacement.1 It is a memory that is intimate and plural, fluid and performative, and that spans many displacements and transformations. Rather than preserving a memory of what was, loss emerges in their work as continuous, not an event passed. Memory, however, rooted in the present, opens onto a future. Through different media, their work becomes a conscious interven- tion to counter such historical erasure and violent fragmentation. A dynamic search for form that could speak to the loss reveals how the political need not be at odds with the aesthetic. The human dimension of loss transcends any particular identity in their work without eliding the historical. Najat Rahman is Associate Professor of Comparative Palestinian artists are creating new transnational networks, languages, and identities Literature at the University in the way they employ mass culture, performance art, and media. Their art is in turn of Montreal. She is author pluralized by this use. It is a cultural expression marked by unique images and lan- of Literary Disinheritance: guage. Like the poems of Mahmoud Darwish and the stories of Ghassan Kanafani, this Home in the Writings of art resists the erasure of Palestinian history, but it ultimately transforms and reinvents Mahmoud Darwish and As- tradition through medium, image, and language. It also transforms prevalent notions of sia Djebar (Lexington Books, identity and of belonging. Henceforth, “dislocations felt by displaced subjects towards 2008) and co-editor of Exile’s disrupted histories and to shifting and transient national identities” will constitute this Poet, Mahmoud Darwish: belonging.2 As exilic identities, they are “constantly producing and reproducing them- Critical Essays (Interlink selves anew, through transformations and difference.”3 Books, 2008). In the past decade, Palestinian es- thetic production — local and diasporic — has gained increasing visibility and recognition on the in- ternational scene. (Emily Jacir’s pres- tigious Hugo Boss Prize in 2008 and Sharif Waked’s exhibits in the Tate Modern and the Guggenheim are but the latest examples). This atten- tion is testimony to the innovations of young artists and is crucial to the dissemination of an artistic experi- Eman Haram, “All the Erased Faces Haunt My ence that has historically remained Remembrances,” 2006. on the margins. It also points to a wider and more extensive experimentation that is taking place in the Palestinian cul- tural scene. Have the 1990s heralded a new period of creativity in the wake of Oslo, and 1. Jacir’s piece is also compiled in Christian Kravagna et al., Belongings: Arbeiten/Works 1998-2003 (Verlag, 2004), while Haram’s photos are available at Saatchi Gallery. 2. Irit Rogoff, Terra Infirma: Geography’s Visual Culture (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 15. 3. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Sydelle Rubin and Nicholas Mirzoeff, eds.,Diaspora and Visual Culture: Representing Africans and Jews (New York: Routledge, 2000), cited in Fran Lloyd, Contemporary Arab Women’s Art: Dialogues of the Present (London: Women’s Art Library, 1999), p. 34. Middle East Institute Viewpoints • www.mei.edu 106 Rahman... “as a result of the decentralization of the Palestinian political scene,” as Ilan Pappé argues?4 Kamal Boullata notes the number of women among the leading innovators and points to the challenges of tracing developments in Palestinian art “across disconnected territories and different cultural environments.”5 Marked by its diversity, whereby dispersal and rupture, which began in 1948, become points of inscription, this esthetic corpus does not relate a unified story of the Pales- tinian experience. While each artist interro- gates identity in a unique manner, it is the negotiation of the personal and the collec- tive, the historic and the esthetic that they seem to share.6 This diversity also manifests itself in the use of the medium, in the cre- Eman Haram, “Untitled,” 2006. ation of a new language in the visual work of art (photography, spatial installation, video, personal performance). Boullata argues, however, that “memory of place” unites Palestinian artists of the post-Nakba period, despite their dispersal.7 More than individual visions, this art has incorporated aspects of global culture to affirm its national belonging as it addresses Western audiences and as it re- mains deeply rooted in Palestinian life. More importantly, Palestinian identity is revealed in these works as plural and dynamic. Emily Jacir’s “Where We Come From” speaks of the fundamental link of memory and loss, life and art, the collective exile and the personal displacement: It is “coming from my experience of spending my whole life going back and forth between Palestine and other parts of the world.”8 “Where We Come From” performs both the displacement of Palestin- ians and the restrictions on their movement. The artist herself, an American citizen, is able to travel. In this work, she carries out personal requests of Palestinians who cannot go home, or cannot cross certain borders of their country to see friends or family, who ask her to visit particular places and people dear to them. In documenting her visits in pho- tographs, she reveals the absurd and abject circumstances in which Palestinians often find themselves, conditions in which they lack freedom of movement among others. She states: “I have seen the deliberate fragmentation of our lands and the isolation of our people from each other by the Israelis. This is an extreme form of violence. For me, this piece was a dialogue between ourselves across these artificial islands and borders that have been created. I conceived of this piece for Palestine.”9 Her photos reflect the dispersion that she tries to overcome: Images of absence mark incomplete lives, and yet they create links with others.10 One such wish is from Jihad, identified in an Arabic-English bilingual text as “Born in Shati Refugee Camp, Gaza City/Living in Ramallah/Gazan I.D. card/Father and mother from Asdud/ (exiled in 1948).” The text reads: “Visit my mother, hug and kiss her … Visit the sea at sunset and smell it for me and walk a bit … enough.
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