In Conversation with Raeda Saadeh

The Tree of Wishes - Performance 

Why do you define yourself as an artist?
Actually it is very sensitive for me when I say I am an artist, because when I look at the art history for instance Michelangelo, I question myself: who am I? Am I an artist? It is not easy for me to say I am an artist. Though, I have this feeling when people talk about my art, when I do an exhibition and others speak of me as an artist, in those moments I recognise myself as an artist.
I teach in two different universities in Palestine and in Israel, in two different languages, and the students are just starting to study and they already say “I am an artist”. So I think it is not difficult to say, “I am an artist.”

What is the role that art has in your everyday life?
I brief art. I don’t have a studio at home, but I have my sketchbook always with me everywhere I go and I am always writing my ideas. I am always talking about art, through which, with Palestine occupied, we can express our problems through art.

Do you consider yourself a “feminist”?
When I am with other artists, we always talk about feminism. For me there are so many things to talk about before talking about feminism. The right of a woman of being considered a human came before feminism in my opinion. This is the concept I am dealing with. I am talking about women that cannot study or work, because their families are really poor. I am talking about something that is normal in other parts of the world, but that here is more difficult. I am talking about being. Feminism is a further step for me to talk about.

For instance, last week I went to this place and I worked with two women of 60 and 70. They didn’t have food to eat. I guess this is a priority, rather than think about feminism. There are many things to work with right now that I cannot focus on feminism. I am more concerned about the problem of being a human.

You use your image in all your work. Is that your way to interact personally with the world? Why? Is it a sort of re-appropriation of female figure?
The way I do my art it is always with me. I am in my art. I always put myself into it. I use my image. I am always performing. When I take a photograph for example I feel myself as if I am doing a performance. For me my artworks are my babies. I am art myself.

Do you think it is correct to label the art of Middle East artists as “Arab or Islamic” art? And, do you define yourself as “Arab” artist?
I am Muslim, I am Arab, I am from Palestine, but I don’t like being labelled especially as “Islamic artist” as I don’t feel I am showing Islamic art.

I can accept that I am a Middle Eastern artist, and I am happy and proud of it, but how could I be defined as an Arab artist? What does it mean? There are many Arab artists that never lived in an Arab country, but they do art. What to call them? How can you define their art as Arab? This identification is very sensitive.

Is Mona Hatoum a Surrealist Palestinian?

Mona Hatoum ( b. 1952, Lebanon) was born into a Palestinian family in Beirut. She often explores the danger and limit of everyday objects, giving them a new vision of interpretation. Her poetic and political oeuvre is realized in a different range of media: installation, sculpture, video photography and work on paper can be interpreted as a description of the body, gender and a commentary on politics.

All her earlier works draw a strong link with the condition of Palestine people. Although born in Lebanon, she always emphasizes her belonging to Palestine, but expresses frustration when that of "nationality" is the only interpretation that the audience gives to her works.

One of her most celebrated works is a video "Measure of distance" she made in 1988. Hatoum produced this video of letters written by her mother in Beirut to her in London. The video is a sensual conversation between two women, mother and daughter, in which the former speaks openly about feelings, sexuality and femininity.

                                     

"Although the main thing that comes across is a very close and emotional relationship between mother and daughter, it also speaks of exile, displacement, disorientation and a tremendous sense of loss as a result of the separation caused by war." ¹

                                     

“View Siege” (1982) was a performance piece in which she was trapped in a large glass container entirely covered in clay. She tried several times to stand but repeatedly slipped and fell as the clay from her body smelted. It was a clear reference to the condition in Palestine as a country living in continuous siege. A collage of sound from different directions and in different languages was the background of the event.

Hatoum’s work is strongly evaluated as existing in the space between the Duchamp’s ready-mades surrealism and minimalism through her way of exploring objects and giving them a metaphoric interpretation via different framework. To explore the way in which she manipulates the object it is interesting to look at “Untitled (Wheelchair II), produced in 1999.

At first glance, the object looks unremarkable in its status, but as soon as one looks closer the differences come across: the chair itself is very uncomfortable and the wheels are very small, consequently the object is useless in its purpose and what appeared is different from the reality.
She took part in the Venice Biennale in 1995 and 2005 and has received numerous international awards, including the Joan Miró Prize in Barcelona (2011), the Käthe Kollwitz Prize in Berlin (2010), the Rolf Schock Prize in Stockholm (2008) and an honorary doctorate from the American University of Beirut (2008).

Today Mona lives and works in London and Berlin, exploring daily through her works, the duality of belonging to a Country of Arab tradition as well as to belong at the other, the “adoptive one” in which prejudice is overcome and freedom is a right of everybody.

1. Quoted in Mona Hatoum 1977, P.140

Arab Women Challenge Western Media

CAIRO May 18, 2011 (Her Blueprint) – Though demonstrating, taking risks, mobilizing, suffering and standing side by side with men in the uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, Arab women are also challenging the Western media to acknowledge their voice.

From Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen and Morocco, women have been at the forefront of the Arab Spring revolutions.

Yemeni women, who represent a third of the thousands of anti-government protestors demanding an end to Ali Abdullah Saleh’s thirty-year rule, are shattering traditions that go back centuries.

“I myself came from a conservative family but my grandmother used to have more freedom in the way that she dressed, talked and dealt with men than I have now,” said Samia al-Haddad, Program and Human Rights Officer for the Yemeni Organization for Development and Rehabilitation in an interview with Her Blueprint.

According to al-Haddad, women’s rights became stifled after the 80’s.

“If you see the footage and the video coming from Yemen and you will see all women veiled in black and this was not the image of women in the 80’s before the expansion of Salafists and Wahabi movements came from Saudi Arabia.”

Hibaaq Osman from Somalia is the CEO and Founder of Karama. She says that the Western media was shocked to see women out on the streets, raising their voices, protesting for democracy and walking side by side with men for a unified cause – political reform and equal rights.

“You have to understand the psychology of the Western media. They want to see a weak, meek and covered woman,” Osman told Her Blueprint.

According to Osman, it’s about time that the West take a good look at themselves before pointing the finger.