As the name suggested, much of the show's work focused on stories of selves and families throughout the Arab world and beyond. Though personal—in some cases intimately so—the works also captured complex strands of regional and global politics. Several brilliant Lebanese video artists, including Lamia Joreige and Akram Zaatari, interwove stories that captured the movement of people throughout the Arab world over the generations, not only as refugees but as active immigrants. Others, like Iraqi-born Adel Abidin, dealt directly with dictatorship, in his case through videos of blonde torch singers singing the patriotic pro-Baathist songs of his youth. Ahmed Alsoudani, another Iraqi, showed strangely beautiful paintings that on close inspection revealed twisted and grotesque bodies mutilated by war. Palestinian artist Steve Sabella showed photographs of six Israelis and a Palestinian, each in underwear in front of a concrete wall—work that went beyond the standard images of the conflict.
Leave a comment