Suha shoman biography sample

Like a stubborn ant following a present route, the silhouette resolutely making its way up the hill on a winding path, that of Suha Shoman herself, is taking the road "somewhere, anywhere, elsewhere". Filmed at different times of the year, the summer of one's life and the winter pointing to an end, the walk is syncopated by a breathing pattern whose medical diagram is displayed on the wall, following the viewer's move and synchronized with the steps in the film.

The labored breathing accompanies the strenuous walk, keeping company bringing life to the silent march towards the peak. Carefully watching the unwavering procession of the walking figure will inevitably lead to thinking. Where does it start? Where will it end? Does it really ever end? What makes us choose a certain path in life? And what do we search along this path?

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You cannot just do pure art. Art is part of other forms of self-expression. I do not like the word 'culture', but culture is poetry, cinema, everything creative, including the visual arts. From the beginning, our inaugural event involved tenor Tania Nasser singing poetry by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, piano composed by Agnes Bashir, classical Western music, and modern ballet.

This has set up the tone for what we do — all suha shoman biographies sample of art in harmony AA : But surely, you are aware that these aspects are also the classic ingredients of what Benedict Anderson called an 'imagined community'. In other words, they are the ingredients of a nation. But you are describing the facets of a nation without a state that articulates and promotes these aspects — you are describing the heritage of a people, the majority of whom have been displaced.

SS : Yes, but this does not mean that it is an invented community. It did exist, and it continues to exist. The works we are presenting show you how Palestinians continued their aspiration for freedom and independence, but because of the greed of the colonialists, that did not materialize. AA : So not necessarily the idea of a nation, but the idea of a culture.

SS : No, a nation as well. A culture is the cornerstone of a nation. It is about people struggling for independence, justice, and their rights. AA : Aside from politics, this year's programme is impressive. Imagine having all these shows in one place. You might have inadvertently created a museum of Palestine. SS : Thank you. I am very proud of this work, because unfortunately very few are doing it.

Similarly, for our 30th anniversary we are planning a museum at the Beit al Beiruti building, one that is related to the history of Jordan as it is told by the historical houses of Darat al Funun. It will be a dynamic, interactive museum. It will be a museum of Bilad al-Sham. We are all connected, one unit. Darat al Funun symbolizes who we are and where we are going.

It tells our history. We have the Roman and Byzantine antiquities reflecting ancient times, buildings from the time of political independence, and today, we are a home for contemporary art. AA : But since you created a sort of Palestine museum this year, and you seem to be one of the few people capable of pulling that off, are there any intentions to collaborate with the new but famously empty Palestinian Museum in Birzeit?

SS : If they had asked me, yes I would, but they did not. AA : I want to zoom out a little bit, and connect the Palestinian project to your interest in Arab art. Many theorists, particularly following World War II, from Theodor Adorno to Jacques Ranciere more recently, have spoken about the relationship between aesthetics and the political.

But is this binary particularly pronounced with Arab and Palestinian art? Do you think that contemporary Arab art is condemned to perpetually address the political? Are we condemned? I would not say that. I personally did not start doing political art. My Petra series was about life, death, and loss, which relates indirectly to Palestine. But then I was forced to come to politics in my film Bayaratinawhich was about my grandfather's orange plantation in Gaza that he started inbut that was totally destroyed by Israeli forces between and We are living at a time when we must stop and act.

Look at the work of Emily Jacir. Or of Mona Hatoum — it is universal, but it relates to her Palestinian origins as well. AA : But if Arab art did not constantly address social or political issues, there could be an art of a completely different nature: one invested in autonomous artistic concerns, like the rest of the world has the liberty to do.

SS : But the rest of the world is also doing politics. Today, we have to ask ourselves where art is going, with all these installations and new media. Should we consider the work of Chris Ofili, the Turner Prize winner who uses elephant dung, as art? Is that enough? And why should we say no to politics? AA : From previous conversations though, we both suspect that some artists might simply ride the wave because they see this as the most plausible trajectory toward globalism.

That is, your passport to the global art scene is through a sort of self-Orientalism. How do you distinguish between those who genuinely want to express something related to their experience or struggles, and those who take advantage of this as a trend? SS : This is the problem, and one of the negative outcomes of globalization. I do not want to use these terms, but you are either a true and genuine artist and art is part of your life, or not.

At the end, there will only remain the few names that make a difference. AA : I want to return to the local context, and consider the influence of geopolitics on art here. You have been working on building an audience for decades. But with the disappearance of the middle class here and elsewhere, and the unending supply of regional calamities refugees, wars, and so onart seems even more of an elitist folly.

How and where does it fit in the region today? SS : It is not elitist, and this is what we are trying to convey here at Darat al Funun. You should have seen the opening of our exhibition Do itwhich was a collaboration with the Sharjah Art Foundation. You should have seen the youth who participated.

Suha shoman biography sample

We are located right in the heart of the city, open to everyone. These days, the middle or upper middle class may have other interests, but we work with and for the youth. AA : How about the profusion of various artistic media, forms, and practices, something that Darat al Funun has been adamant on channelling in suha shoman biography sample years?

This obviously corresponds to the global blurring of the distinctions between art and the everyday. But has that liberated art within this context, or hurt its reception? SS : It is our role to show contemporary art. The audience varies, and some might have not responded to new art forms. But our shows have opened new horizons for the youth, many of whom have started working with these new media, such as photography and video.

This is one of the strengths of Darat al Funun — it is about more than just art. We are part of the community. AA : Sticking with the idea of reception, but perhaps a global one, how do you feel about the 'discovery' of your mentor Fahrelnissa Zeid, someone who might not have been taken seriously when she was painting around the mid-twentieth century because she was perceived as this exotic Oriental princess.

Do you think she is being exoticized now for a different reason, as a pioneer female Middle Eastern artist? SS : No. Go back to history. It was a time of change, and she was part of that. She was placed out of history because she was a female, like most of the women of that time. Second, she was not French. Third, she was a Muslim, and she was a princess.

You can name so many female artists from all over the world who were taken out of history, but now there is a revival. Sonia Delaunay got to be known after the death of her husband. We know the struggles of Frida Kahlo, and Vieira da Silva, and many others. AA : So this is only a late, but fair, reassessment? SS : Yes, there is a revival these days.

Saloua Raouda Choucair recently had a retrospective at Tate Modern. Part of the reason Fahrelnissa is at the Tate now has to do with what we talked about, this general interest in Arab art. She is not Arab, she was Turkish, but she has these connections to the region. I owe her a great debt, which is part of the reason her portraits have been displayed here at the Dar Khalid building since our 25th anniversary.

Her work has been reconsidered in different contexts: as a Turkish-Jordanian, who had her origins in the Ottoman period, with Western training, and open to the world. So to present her today is not out of an Orientalist impulse, but because of this interest in women artists and their contribution to modern art. AA : Speaking of discoveries and the creation of new knowledge, I want to thank you for the opportunity to do research in Amman.

What were your ambitions behind this fellowship? SS : This was not necessarily about ambition, but again, about a need. Darat al Funun has always been an artist-driven project. I am an artist, and I wanted to create a collective: a community where artists can meet each other, to have both practice and theory in one place. From onward, the vision has been the same.

We are an oasis of research, of production, of dialogue; we have had a programme of residencies sinceand now a year archive. We are a pioneering institution in the region. This is how the project with Shakir Hasan Al Said came about. For two years, from tothere were a series of talks, and we ended up publishing the book Hiwar Al-Fann Al-Tashkili as a compendium of these talks.

The objective was to benefit from Al Said's knowledge and experience, and to try and identify people who can talk and write about art, because we knew from the beginning that there were no studies on Arab art. This was also the case with our book Arab Art Historieswhich was not intended to be a catalogue of our collection, but a contribution to scholarship.

This is also why, inwe established the fellowship to support academic studies of Arab art. Histories of art discuss modernism everywhere, from Europe to Africa, but no one writes about Arab art. AA : What dimensions of modern and contemporary Arab art are we missing the most, and which do you believe need urgent scholarship? SS : We need research on Arab art from the very beginning.

We need more scholarship, period. One of the things that interest me personally is the influence of Islamic art on abstraction in the West. We have this great heritage of Islamic art, which brought abstraction to the eyes of the West. If you look at the work of Mondrian before the famous Munich exhibition on Islamic art, and then you see it inyou will notice the appearance of geometric patterns.

This is just an observation to be considered and investigated. We always had relationships with the rest of the world, so we suha shoman biography sample examine influences with an open mind. In any case, there is a general need for scholarship, and that is why we support it. AA : Your activities have been wide-ranging, and your support for art is admirable.

Has your devotion to Darat al Funun taken a toll on your career as an artist? My work takes time, and I need solitude and concentration. My film I Am Everywhere is only eight minutes, but it took me eight months to prepare. AA : I consider myself fortunate to have seen your early paintings, and the remarkable Petra series. Could we say that you still approach art as a painter even though you have explored other media?

SS : Definitely, with the eyes of a painter. If you look at my films, you will see that instead of painting with a brush, I am painting with the camera. The angles I take, I take them as if I am painting.