What is better than Music to bridge cultures? Nothing really, I believe. I've mentioned before many times that my first interaction with the Maghreb region happened through Rai music. This great genre that got introduced to thousands, if not millions, of my generation in the Arab world and Europe through pop songs like those of Khaled and Mami. When you take such a genre seriously, as a fan of music, then you try to know as much as possible. You get to track the history of it and how it is a reflection of a great diversity in Algeria's early modern history. You also get to know the dialect better, see how different communities interact, and what themes are mostly presented. If it wasn't for Rai, I would not have known about the history of the 1990's civil war in Algeria; the young men and women escaping the threats and assassinations of Islamists back then. A great example of that was the assassinated Cheb Hosni.
Starting a conversation between the Maghreb and the Gulf.
September 23, 2012
September 7, 2012
A tale of two Moroccan women exposes myths of Arab identity
[This article was originally published at The National.]
Nameless in her own space, judged and defined by others, familiar in some ways, but misunderstood in others - the art exhibition entitled Lalla Essaydi: Revisions explores the artistic representation of Arab women.
In the series Les Femmes du Maroc, the subjects' entire bodies and space are obscured with illegible calligraphy, that for non-Arabic readers, as the artist Lalla Essaydi herself explained, questions the "assumption that the written holds the best access to reality."
It also presents a telling account of how the existence of Arab women, who are most commonly defined by their bodies and surrounding spaces, is reduced to rigid concepts that obscure their complictated realities. Arab women are often perceived in binary terms: either she is "this" or she is "that".
Essaydi, a Moroccan-born artists, explores these themes in her latest exhibition in Washington DC in ways that allow for their application in fields other than art.
As I was viewing Essaydi's exhibition in DC, I began reflecting on how Moroccan women have been, and continue to be, represented.
Their situation is constantly explained in relative terms. Their status and role in society are seen through the lens of their recent history. This inevitably produces a narrative that assumes every Moroccan woman shares the same reality.
In fact, the status of Moroccan women is, as in any society, riddled with inequalities and imposed hierarchies rooted in history and power, both heavily shaped by political economy.
It is important to identify and expose these inequalities and hierarchies. At various moments, when particular narratives are being perpetuated, both the wealthiest and the poorest, the privileged and the deprived, come to represent the reality of the masses.
I will examine the case of two Moroccan women whose realities demonstrate these two extremes, but who have come to define Moroccan women as a group: Selwa Akhennouch and Amina Filali.
Nameless in her own space, judged and defined by others, familiar in some ways, but misunderstood in others - the art exhibition entitled Lalla Essaydi: Revisions explores the artistic representation of Arab women.
In the series Les Femmes du Maroc, the subjects' entire bodies and space are obscured with illegible calligraphy, that for non-Arabic readers, as the artist Lalla Essaydi herself explained, questions the "assumption that the written holds the best access to reality."
It also presents a telling account of how the existence of Arab women, who are most commonly defined by their bodies and surrounding spaces, is reduced to rigid concepts that obscure their complictated realities. Arab women are often perceived in binary terms: either she is "this" or she is "that".
Essaydi, a Moroccan-born artists, explores these themes in her latest exhibition in Washington DC in ways that allow for their application in fields other than art.
As I was viewing Essaydi's exhibition in DC, I began reflecting on how Moroccan women have been, and continue to be, represented.
Their situation is constantly explained in relative terms. Their status and role in society are seen through the lens of their recent history. This inevitably produces a narrative that assumes every Moroccan woman shares the same reality.
In fact, the status of Moroccan women is, as in any society, riddled with inequalities and imposed hierarchies rooted in history and power, both heavily shaped by political economy.
It is important to identify and expose these inequalities and hierarchies. At various moments, when particular narratives are being perpetuated, both the wealthiest and the poorest, the privileged and the deprived, come to represent the reality of the masses.
I will examine the case of two Moroccan women whose realities demonstrate these two extremes, but who have come to define Moroccan women as a group: Selwa Akhennouch and Amina Filali.
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