Volume 11 - Number 1 December 2014 – January 2015 £4 TTHISHIS ISSUEISSUE: CCONTEMPORARYONTEMPORARY AARTRT ● TThehe vvisualisual languagelanguage ofof dissentdissent ● UUn-representablen-representable narrativesnarratives andand contemporarycontemporary amnesiaamnesia ● WWaysays ooff sseeingeeing ● AArabrab aanimatednimated ccartoons,artoons, thenthen andand nownow ● PPhotohoto ccompetitionompetition resultsresults ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews andand eventsevents inin LondonLondon Volume 11 - Number 1 DecemberDe 2014 – January 2015 £4 TTHISHIS IISSUESSUE: CCONTEMPORARYONTEMPORARY AARTRT ● TThehe vvisualisual llanguageanguage ooff ddissentissent ● UUn-representablen-representable nnarrativesarratives aandnd contemporarycontemporary aamnesiamnesia ● WWaysays ooff sseeingeeing ● AArabrab aanimatednimated ccartoons,artoons, tthenhen aandnd nnowow ● PPhotohoto ccompetitionompetition rresultsesults ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews aandnd eeventsvents iinn LLondonondon Samira Alikhanzadeh, Untitled, 2011 About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) Volume 11 - Number 1 Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide December 2014 – teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle January 2015 East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic Editorial Board membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Professor Nadje Al-Ali SOAS has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle East. LMEI’s Advisory Council is the driving force behind the Institute’s fundraising programme, for which Dr Hadi Enayat AKU it takes primary responsibility. It seeks support for the LMEI generally and for specifi c components of its Ms Narguess Farzad programme of activities. SOAS Mrs Nevsal Hughes Association of European Journalists Dr George Joff é Mission Statement: Cambridge University Mr Barnaby Rogerson Th e aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle Ms Sarah Searight East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with British Foundation for the Study of Arabia those who have a special interest in the region. In this task it builds on two essential assets. First, it is based in Dr Kathryn Spellman-Poots London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the AKU and LMEI Middle East including political, social, cultural, commercial and educational aspects. Secondly, the LMEI is Dr Sarah Stewart at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide education SOAS and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today. Mrs Ionis Th ompson Saudi-British Society and BFSA Dr Shelagh Weir SOAS LMEI Staff: Professor Sami Zubaida Birkbeck College Director Dr Hassan Hakimian Coordinating Editor Executive Offi cer Louise Hosking Megan Wang Events and Magazine Coordinator Vincenzo Paci Listings Administrative Assistant Valentina Zanardi Vincenzo Paci Designer Shahla Geramipour Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor: Th e Middle East in London is published fi ve times a year by the London Middle Opinions and views expressed in the Middle East Please send your letters to the editor at East Institute at SOAS in London are, unless otherwise stated, personal the LMEI address provided (see left panel) views of authors and do not refl ect the views of their or email [email protected] Publisher and organisations nor those of the LMEI and the MEL's Editorial Offi ce Editorial Board. Although all advertising in the Th e London Middle East Institute SOAS magazine is carefully vetted prior to publication, the University of London MBI Al Jaber Building, 21 Russell LMEI does not accept responsibility for the accuracy Square, London WC1B 5EA of claims made by advertisers. United Kingdom T: +44 (0)20 7898 4490 SSubscriptions:ubscriptions: F: +44 (0)20 7898 4329 E: [email protected] www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/ To subscribe to Th e Middle East in London, please visit: ISSN 1743-7598 www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/affi liation/ Contents LMEI Board of Trustees 4 17 Professor Paul Webley (Chair) Director, SOAS EDITORIAL BOOKS Professor Richard Black, SOAS Th e Political Aesthetics of Dr John Curtis Iran Heritage Foundation 5 Global Protest: the Arab Spring Sir Vincent Fean INSIGHT and Beyond Professor Ben Fortna, SOAS Th e visual language of dissent Charles Tripp Mr Alan Jenkins Megan Wang Dr Karima Laachir, SOAS 18 Dr Dina Matar, SOAS 7 God’s Zoo: Artists, Exiles, Dr Barbara Zollner Birkbeck College CONTEMPORARY ART Londoners Un-representable narratives Barnaby Rogerson and contemporary amnesia: LMEI Advisory Council Soheila Sokhanvari 20 Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem Janet Rady and Lisa Pollman Practising Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East Department, SOAS Mamluk Sultanate: Gift s Mr Stephen Ball KPMG 9 and Material Culture in the H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Ways of seeing: traces of the Medieval Islamic World Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani disappeared Hugh Kennedy Arab International Women’s Forum Nadje Al-Ali Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa President, University College of Bahrain 21 Professor Tony Allan 11 BOOKS IN BRIEF King’s College and SOAS Dr Alanoud Alsharekh Drawing politics: Arab Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS animated cartoons, then 23 Mr Farad Azima NetScientifi c Plc and now PROFILE Dr Noel Brehony Omar Sayfo Anna Contadini MENAS Associates Ltd. Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna British Egyptian Society 13 24 HE Mr Mazen Kemal Homoud Ambassador, Embassy of the Hashemite Photo competition results Mostafa Dashti Kingdom of Jordan 15 25 Founding Patron and REVIEWS EVENTS IN LONDON Donor of the LMEI EXHIBITIONS Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber MBI Al Jaber Foundation Poetry & exile Venetia Porter December 2014 – January 2015 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL © Reza Derakshani DDearear RReadereader Reza Derakshani, Shirin & Khosrow, 2009. Oil on canvas. 150 x 180cm Kathryn Spellman-Poots, Nadje Al-Ali, MEL Editorial Board ondon is renowned for being a global artist. Using crude oil and humorous throughout the region, Sayfo demonstrates centre for cultural production and narratives, Sokhanvari’s provocative work how animation production has become Lcommerce, and Middle Eastern artists, engages with serious issues such as national integrated into national policies and used to living in the diaspora and from the region identity, the environment and global propagate political agendas. itself, have long been making the most of politics. Conversely, this issue also explores how its creative industries. Th e articles in this Th e Iraqi artist, Jananne Al-Ani, in ordinary people, from all walks of life, have issue present a few of these artists and conversation with Nadje Al-Ali, looks been imaginatively utilising a wide range explore some of the complex sources that critically at the way people look at of aesthetics – music, poetry, humour lie behind their cultural productions. Exile images. Th rough her work on the body and even everyday objects – as powerful and dislocation, East–West connections and she confronts clichéd representations of tools to rally people together, challenge misunderstandings, and turbulent politics, veiled women and attempts to alter the authority and make demands for change. are to name a few examples of conditions relationship between the viewer and the Drawing from examples in Turkey, Libya that continue to motivate and shape the viewed. Her most recent works endeavour and Tunisia, Megan Wang’s Insight piece creative process. to make connections between Middle demonstrates how objects such gas masks, Venetia Porter, surveying the exhibition Eastern and American landscapes, both playing cards, and national fl ags have been Poetry & exile at the British Museum, literally and metaphorically. Investigating re-appropriated as subversive symbols by highlights a number of artists and explains East–West connections is also a central activists to disrupt the status quo. Charles how painful personal stories, poetry, and theme in this issue’s Profi le piece, Tripp’s review of the book Th e Political the histories of the region are drawn upon featuring Anna Contadini, Professor of Aesthetics of Global Protest: the Arab in various and complex ways in their work. the History of Islamic Art. Indeed, her Spring and Beyond highlights how images, Th e ‘in-betweenness’ of the exile condition research concentrates on the exchanges performances, and caricatures become is oft en described as an unrestricted space and interpretations of Middle Eastern and important oppositional spaces for thinking for artists to negotiate and express emotions European arts across cultural boundaries. against power and authority. and aspirations. Acknowledging the In a diff erent vein, Omar Sayfo examines Finally, it is fi tting to announce in this ambivalence of living in exile, Janet Rady the evolution of Arab animation and the issue the winners of the 2014 MEL photo and Lisa Pollman’s piece on the Iranian ongoing attempts for countries