Welcome to the latest edition of The Arts Edit, the weekly newsletter from The National's Abu Dhabi newsroom rounding up this week's most noteworthy arts and culture stories.
IN FOCUS
Today marks 200 days since the Israel-Gaza war began, and voices in support of peace still cry out across the region and the world.
As Razmig Bedirian explored in depth in his feature on Alserkal's Venice Biennale show, solidarity is not a metaphor, and its vital practice comes in many forms.
The show's curator, Natasa Petresin-Bachelez, tells The National: “[Solidarity] is actually about practice, long-term engagement and not a one-time act.”
It's heartening, at least, in contrast to years past, that silence and one-time acts are less and less the modus operandi of so many other prominent voices in the entertainment industry.
This month, Cinema for Gaza organised a celebrity auction, with leading figures from across entertainment contributing items.
Actors, musicians and filmmakers of various backgrounds who have been vocal throughout the tragedy, including Joaquin Phoenix, Annie Lennox, Tilda Swinton, Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro, Ramy Youssef, Jonathan Glazer, Paul Mescal, Ayo Edebiri and Olivia Colman, contributed various items that raised more than $300,000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity that offers services in Gaza. Find more on that here.
Prominent calls for peace are also coming from some in Israel, including the artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The pavilion still remains shuttered, even as the event opened to the public over the weekend, and will remain so until a ceasefire agreement is reached, which you can learn more about here.
The message is clear – inaction in the face of unfathomable tragedy is unacceptable. But even still, one of the Palestinian diaspora’s most prominent cultural figures remains publicly silent on the issue.
According to his cousin, former Dubai Bling star and founder of The Giving Family, Fadie Musallet, DJ Khaled is no longer welcome in Palestine as a result.
Speaking to The National’s Saeed Saeed, he states the Palestinian-American hip-hop artist's silence on the plight of his homeland during the war will not be forgotten by those enduring the onslaught on the ground.
Musallet's remarks come after he returned from what he describes as his monthly visits to the West Bank, where his mother resides.
“Khaled always wanted to go to Palestine, but I don’t think he can come there now,” he tells The National. “They are really hurt by the lack of support, they really feel like they have been let down.”
Musallet also shares that anguish. As an established event producer and social entrepreneur, he understands the risks celebrities face when commenting on the current war. But the scale of destruction and lives lost – more than 34,100 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict – are impossible to ignore.
New film festival aims to reclaim the Muslim artistic identity in the West
Last week, actor-producer Sajid Varda launched the first Muslim International Film Festival. Taking place in London between May 30 and June 2, the festival’s inaugural iteration promises an enticing mix of feature films, shorts, industry panels and Q&As with talent, including Riz Ahmed.
But more than that, Varda is hoping for the festival to help reclaim Muslim artistic identity in a world where words like “Islam” and “Allahu akbar” are often demonised.
“The media loves to use Islam and Muslim as part of the headline, because again, it's just the way of stoking up fear, dividing communities,” Varda explains exclusively to The National.
“So this really is about how do we reclaim our identity, which really has been taken away from us. It's been left in the hands of others, who seek to really demonise our faith and you can see that also in TV shows and films … that there is a lot of stereotyping.”
Varda points out that as a younger man he starred in the comedy show Teenage Health Freak, which ran from 1991 to 1993 on UK television broadcaster Channel 4. It was one of the rare times he’d seen his own community shown on screen.
Although representation has improved since then, world events like the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 saw Muslims and Islam identified with something “not just foreign but evil”. On top of this, stories from the Muslim community were not getting screen time in the media.
“The fear of the other is perhaps why we have a lot of the issues that we have currently,” he says. “And it's about how do we break down those barriers? How do we show other communities who we interact with on a daily basis in so many different ways?
“How do we share our lived experiences, and show other audiences and other communities that actually there's nothing really to be fearful of? What we should be very careful and fearful of is the media in how they portray minority communities.”
Saudi pavilion at Venice Biennale charts the evolving role of women in the kingdom
Saudi visual artist Manal Al Dowayan is known for her research-based participatory practice, placing community voices at the forefront of her artwork. Her exhibition for the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia at this year’s Venice Biennale is no different.
Titled Shifting Sands: A Battle Song, curated by Jessica Cerasi and Maya El Khalil, Al Dowayan’s multimedia installation is inspired by the evolving role of women in Saudi Arabia. It is rooted in three workshops that took place across the country, where she engaged with more than 1,000 women from all walks of life.
The installation’s genesis stems from Saudi folkloric battle songs – specifically Al Daha and Ardah – traditionally performed by men, originating before the formation of Saudi Arabia, when tribes gathered before a battle to chant poems for courage and strength.
“I always say that art sits in between the archive and the research. Continuing research is something that takes time and energy from many people to be verified,” Al Dowayan tells The National. “I can take a bit of what exists as clean truth, look at what kind of ideas are being explored and then reimagine something – trigger an idea, have a conversation in a much safer space, because the space of art is a space of imagination, of freedom, emotion, truth and humanity.
“[I explore] this idea of creating a song for women during this moment of change,” she adds. “Although women do have a lot of folkloric and traditional dances, they've never been archived or documented, so I don't know the words of the songs and the feeling of preparing as a group to make a gesture, a sound or a sonic communication.”
Discover more about how the project evolved here.
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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
- Bred Abu Dhabi at Yas Bay – April 24 to 28
- Peggy Gou at Louvre Abu Dhabi – April 27
- IIFA Utsavam 2024 at Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi – September 6 to 7
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
