ALL ART IS LOCAL _ THE ROLE OF ART IN SHAPING NATIONAL IDENTITY

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ALL ART IS LOCAL: THE ROLE OF ART IN SHAPING NATIONAL IDENTITY

MARTIN GIESEN

What can art do for a nation’s identity? Does art shape a country’s sense of itself? Is art transmitting information about the state of the state? Does rapid change also alter identity?

By name, the United Arab Emirates is a young country. It just celebrated its 40th birthday. But recent archeological finds show human activity dating back to the Old Stone Age, when our prehistoric ancestors migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe (Scott-Jackson 2008, p.43).

What images can the history of this land contribute to its identity? Early inhabitants of this region were skilled herders and fishermen. They lived a precarious existence between the sands, the savannah and the sea. Resources were sparse and kept the population small. Gazelles, camels, fish and date palms provided nourishment, shelter and clothing. Today the Arabian Oryx is coming back from near extinction and graces currency notes and wildlife reserves.

With the domestication of the camel some four thousand years ago, transportation of goods became feasible and mobility increased. Date palm farming yielded a nourishing staple with a long shelf life and palm fronds provided raw material for implements, containers, even watercraft and building material for arish shelters. Today, palm leaf buildings are a research topic in vernacular architecture (Piesik, S 2011). The shape of the palm has resurfaced as an iconic referent for development of the new Dubai.

The advent of Islam left its mark on

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society and the legendary navigators of the 15th Century improved maritime exchange. The region flourished when camel caravans brought spices from Sri Lanka and India and exported precious Yemeni frankincense to meet the demand of the Byzantine empire. Themed malls in Dubai mine motifs from Islamic architecture and Ibn Battuta’s travel reports to design their retail spaces.

After changing traffic patterns slowed growth, the next phase of economic prosperity of the region relied on the natural pearl which in the early 20th. Century supported a fleet of some 5000 pearling boats in the Arabian Gulf (Dickson, 1936). World War I and the depression weakened demand, and the newly developed cultured pearls from Japan spelled the demise of much of the economic base of life in the Gulf, ushering in thirty years of dire poverty, population decline and emigration .

The grandparents of today’s Emiratis were shaped by the hardship they endured facing economic shifts. Once oil was discovered and the first revenue was realized in 1962, the leadership of Abu Dhabi was intent on investing capital in infrastructure projects that would outlast oil and contribute to long- term stability. Under leadership of Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan the rulers of seven contiguous Trucial States recognized that their survival chances would be greatly enhanced by cooperation and in 1972 they united under the banner of the United Arab Emirates.

The rest of the story is well known. In nearly all areas of development the UAE has made great progress. In literacy, education, healthcare, transport

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and manufacturing, global standards of excellence have been imported. An international workforce of expatriates has assisted in building modern infrastructure in record time. As a result of the great influx of expatriates, the ratio of Emiratis to foreigners in the country has declined rapidly. In 2002 the Emirati component was 25

% of the total population. By 2025 the Emirati component may be as low as 5% (Abdullah, 2007).

If it is seen as acceptable that global markets in a ‘flat world’ will largely disregard national distinctions, the concern of loss of cultural identity in the Emirates is palpable. Consequently, Emiratis, a minority in their own country, aim to protect their way of life while engaging in ”a live experiment to reconcile modernity with Arab bedouinism” (Al Gergawi, 2011).

In art, this experiment seeks to find a path in uncharted territory. Stephen Shore, who, in 2009 lead a photography workshop for which ten UAE artists were selected, describes the impact of globalization on art:

So globalization of the art world has two faces: it both exposes artists from all over to the same influences, while at the same time it exposes to us all the wide range of rich artistic traditions that continue to flower around the globe…The solution for these (UAE) artists is not seeking acceptance in the art world by adopting a thoroughly western sensibility. Nor is it to paste an Arabic veneer on to a modernist core…The group of artists represented here, all of them sophisticated, intelligent, perceptive, are in a sense, transmuting what they carry inherently from their heritage, what they learn from their experiences, and what they add to this from their imaginations into a living tradition. They are, in fact, creating a tradition (Shore 2011, p16).

If we apply Shore’s observations to contemporary art in the UAE, creating this tradition will result in a material culture that absorbs common myths, historical memories and experience of a public culture, even if that culture is partially segregated along lines of citizenship.

The exploration of identity is not a new concept for artists … but the challenge of defining an ‘Emirati expression’ is magnified here, where national identity is still evolving, (Al Daheri, 2012). In the last decade, a vibrant contemporary art scene has developed in the United Arab Emirates. In the following, this presentation aims to highlight how locally produced art helps to define the contemporary characteristics of the people of the UAE, now that camels and falcons, deserts and pearls no longer express who they are.

Reem Al Gaith: I travel with my countryPoster: 5470-7880-0080image9.jpg On November 29, 2011 Emirati artist Reem

Al Gaith (born 1985) returned to her alma mater to lecture on ‘Dubai – what is

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left of my land’. Her story started with an assignment while still a student: writing a statement for her senior thesis. This was the year 2008, the height of the real estate boom in Dubai.

Reem graduated when skyscrapers mushroomed out of desert sand and mega projects were sold off plan before building permits had been obtained. It was the year when Explorer, a publisher, prepared a new Dubai map that provided a glimpse of what was to come: an enticing blueprint of a fantasy land, quadrupling built-up space within a decade. The master plan included the world’s largest airport and tallest building. It showed a new industrial city bordering the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi, a techno park, Tiger Woods golf estates, a circular garden city as big as the Dubai of the 1960’s. And it showed the four island clusters that would multiply waterfront property geometrically.

For her senior project in Visual Communication Reem Al Gaith collated the land she knew with the map of promises and the real life construction melee that turned Dubai into one huge building site. She digitally separated developed from undeveloped land, constructing a layered collage titled Dubai, What is left of my land? At the same time, the surge of the building boom spilled over into the art world. Emirati artists were courted and coveted before they had a chance to emerge. While still a student, Reem was invited to recreate

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her project for Shanghai, followed by a call to exhibit at the Sharjah Biennial and, following in short order, at Haus der Kunst, Munich, The Future of Tradition, 1910-2010, and Venice Biennale. At each step the site requirements changed, and with them the parameters of installation.

Amir Berbic: They said trees could never grow in the sea

In Fall 2010, Amir Berbic, (born 1980), graphic designer from Bosnia and Chicago living in the UAE, exhibited his own responses to the Dubai fantasy at the Art Institute of Chicago Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design. Berbic’s training in letter form alerts him to configurations of visible language in trans-cultural environments. In the postcard series History Rising, he explores the aspired identity of Dubai as it is proclaimed by billboard announcements of its architectural projects. Stenciled mottos printed on Dubai’s iconic vistas evoke the hyperbole with which some of the more notorious development projects were marketed.

In an earlier exhibition (Opus IV, Sharjah Art Museum, 2009), Berbic cast the marketing slogans into gilded ingots, awarding lasting substance to the claims of speculative riches that would accompany investment in Dubai real estate. In hindsight, these honorific plaques have an uncanny resemblance to grave markers.

Lamya Gargash: Vernacular Hospitality Portrait: 5470-7880-0080image17.

jpg Born 1982, Emirati artist Lamya Gargash graduated 2004 with a degree in Visual Communication from the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah. She earned a Masters of Arts in Communication Design from

Saint Martin’s in the UK in 2007. Lamya was featured in 2009 at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In photographs and films Lamya has explored the impact of change on her society. Interior: 5470-7880-0080image18.jpg She has

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documented interiors of Emirati houses and three star hotels and has published a series of photographs that draw attention to vernacular interiors of hospitality. The personal sphere of the abode is a fiercely protected space in traditional Arab lifestyle. The unguarded openness of the desert, required reliable conventions of hospitality with strict guidelines for visitor and host alike. Similarly, ingrained customs regulated hospitality in the densely settled urban conglomerates of the traditional Arab city. Generosity is one much prized aspect and even in urban settings, the temporary character of nomadic shelter is often celebrated with great splendor and spatial formality that honors host and guest alike. Majlis, “the place of sitting”, is the term that describes the reception space in an Arab house. For the 9th Sharjah Biennial (2009) Gargash installed photographs that give a rare and intimate insight into the residential space where Emiratis

socialize. But beyond its private domestic function, the majlis also serves the semi-public political need of assembly and has become a synonym for the tribal tradition of open meetings. The majlis is a space and an occasion, providing an opportunity for any citizen to meet his sheikh or her sheikha personally to pay respects, convey information or communicate grievances. Recently, demands for more democracy and the uprisings associated with the Arab Spring have heightened the importance of dialog between governments and the populations they are meant to serve. As a result, the majlis inspires, focuses and reflects the notion of consultative democracy. At its best, the majlis serves to prevent the alternative of confrontation in the public square.

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As we see, the majlis is a place of complex connotations. As an icon of indigenous hospitality, it also points to the role that tourism is to play in the post-oil economy of the UAE. Efforts are being made to establish an indigenous hospitality industry, that ‘represents the ethnicity and religious dimensions of the host culture,’ (Stephenson, 2010). It remains to be seen how a westernized holiday culture with its focus on sun and fun may challenges the ethical traditions and socio-cultural sensitivities of UAE nationals.

In government language, the path of development is clear: Ambitious and responsible Emiratis will successfully carve out their future, actively engaging in an evolving socio-economic environment, and drawing on their strong families and communities, moderate Islamic values, and deep-rooted heritage to build a vibrant and well-knit society (UAE Government, 2011).

Rania Ezzat: Dubai Dung BeetlesBorn and schooled in Egypt, Rania Ezzat obtained a Fine Art diploma in Cairo in

1998 and in Geneva in 2007. As artist, curator and gallery manager in Dubai, Ms. Ezzat has responded in a variety of ways to the political and economic challenges facing the region.

The labor force that made the explosive growth of real estate possible in the last decade has rarely been made the subject of art. Two of Ezzat’s installations from 2009 and 2010 allude to the world of work. In 2009, Rania assembled four hundred plastic helmets and with them built Yellow Tower (Bastakiya Art Fair, Dubai). In 2010 this was followed by Yellow Ball, 1000 meters of plastic construction mesh, rolled into a tight sphere.

In both installations Rania connects contemporary Dubai to her Egyptian heritage. The tower of helmets alludes to the obelisks which flanked the entrance of the mortuary temples of Karnak and Thebes. Those markers of pharaonic might have survived. They have been exported to St. Peter’s Piazza in Rome and to the Place de la Concorde in Paris and there they are reemployed to bring honor to the present

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occupants of power. Little is known of the workers who built them. In ancient Egypt, stone architecture, the material of eternal life, was reserved for the dead. The living made do with temporary abodes of mud brick or reed screens, as bio-degradable as their un-mummified corpses.

In Yellow Ball the theme of labor and mythology is more colorfully articulated. The Khepri, the Egyptian dung beetle, rolls his ball ahead of himself. His unceasing devotion to labor and the moving sphere gained him a sacred association with the sun, who he guards at night on the course through the underworld. Rania leaves it to our imagination to relate the fate and the fame of the Khepri to the laborers who work in sites fenced off by construction screens. But the light behind Yellow Ball is

so artfully positioned that the sphere begins to glow at its edge like the rim of a celestial body during an eclipse. I’d like to read this as an homage to the unknown laborer.

Mark Pilkington: Ensuring a rightful place Born and educated in the UK, RCA

graduate Pilkington teaches photography at a university in the United Arab Emirates. His relationship to his host country is illustrated in the landscapes he has made the subject of his artistic production. The country and its landscape is undergoing massive transformation. Mark Pilkington seeks out the places where the change is palpable and interjects himself into the transformative process. ‘He constructs scenes provoking questions of both personal and universal relevance’ (Maktoum, 2008). Pilkington is an expatriate, hired to do his part ‘to ensure that science and education regain their rightful place in the building and advancement of (UAE) society…’ (AUS University Catalog, 2009, p.2).

In Red Triptych, 2008 a solitary man, dressed in black and a red shirt is leaning, standing, bending amid road construction. There is a pile of large rocks, signposts, directional arrows and bags of material neatly lined up. The picture plane is strictly parallel to the empty road. In the middle image the loner is centered in the

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crosshairs of the visual axes, looking out to the Arabian Gulf where dredging craft and cranes remind that new land is being made here. Mountains are quarried and shifted into the sea.

In Working the Desert, 2007 Pilkington is an active protagonist. Alone in a forsaken, arid place, where parching winds and truck wheels have ground the desert floor to dust, he gets to work. With pickaxe and measuring stick, with bare hands and a spade he shapes the land. He is shifting sand, pitching a rock, not satisfied with the way things are. Does he make a difference? Is the change for the better?

Tarek Al-Ghoussein: Gentle Occupation For many years Al Ghoussein,

renowned Kuwaiti born Palestinian photographer and educator, has exhibited landscapes in which he stages himself as a performer. Plane: 5470-7880-0080image27.jpg Earlier work saw him wearing the Kuffiye, the chequered headdress that has become synonymous with protest movements and stereotypical shorthand for ‘terrorist’. Seeing Al Ghoussein hanging around a blown up building or passing close to

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the cockpit of a commercial airliner would trigger disturbingly easily the scare reaction that a decade of ‘war on terror’ has conditioned us to feel.

In recent work he performs roles that are more genuinely reflecting his peaceful, even pastoral nature. (In) Beautification is the title of a series of 2009 photographs from Saddiyat Island, the site near Abu Dhabi that is slated to become the

‘world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions’ (Shore, 2011). In this constructed landscape the little indigenous flora that existed here has

been removed. The historic crust of the sandy soil, bearing camel tracks and traces from off-road vehicles is replaced by a dense irrigation grid. In the future, the black meandering hosepipe will slake the thirst of salt resistant plants, trees, and flowers. Desalinated water, a precious resource in a country with less than 100 mm of annual rainfall, will add to the daily requirement of the UAE, already at or near the top in per capita consumption of water in the world.

These photographic documents freeze ephemeral performance, a contradiction in itself, as unsustainable as the constructed landscape of Saddiyat Cultural District. This landscape does not reconcile modernity with bedouinism as Al-Gergawi formulated. The culture is imported, the architects of the museums are cutting edge global operators, and the objective of the

Saadiyat Cultural District is clearly stated: to establish an international platform in the UAE for arts and culture.

In his photographs, Al Ghoussein volunteers as gardener. The homeless, landless Palestinian academic, who never set foot on the soil of his homeland, is gently shaping the landscape. In strictly curtailed compositions he rolls out weed-inhibiting sheets, distributes gravel, spreads compost, waters sea grass. He surveys progress and measures distances. He sets a potted plant aside and becomes almost one with the land, invisible in the grove of young bougainvillea shrubs.

With his assistance, the garden Al Ghoussein cultivates, becomes a metaphor of education. As professor of photography he transmits knowledge about the technique of the medium, he explores its inherent potential, he encourages association and insists on academic rigor. And as his students explore the issues central to their own investigations, they grow the roots that will support formation of their own creative personas.

Conclusion The stone age exhibits in Sharjah’s Archeological Museum suggest that the

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people who first settled on the shores of the Gulf, were all expatriates. These days, the UAE is again experiencing a great wave of immigration. That influx of foreign ways has undeniable impact on shaping a new identity. But the new generation of Emiratis, sophisticated, confident and educated, will themselves inject their experience with the contemporary world into their environment and lifestyle.

The contemporary artists that were featured in this presentation are also containers and transmitters of tradition. Tradition, to paraphrase Karl Popper, has two functions: One is to create a certain order or structure that gives identity. The second is, to give us something upon which we can operate; something we can question, can criticize, change and improve.

The identity of the UAE is as much connected to its people as it is to its land. People provide its memories, shape its institutions, construct its myths and imagine its dreams. Artists of the UAE have internalized traditional Emirati culture, they engage with the land, they work the desert, they honor the vernacular and share in the fascination with a future that is shaped in the present.

ReferencesAbdullah, A 2007, ‘UAE’s demographic imbalance’, Gulf News, Dubai, April 14.Al Dhaheri, H 2012, ‘When deserts and daggers cease to define, what’s left?’,

The National, Abu Dhabi, January 8.Al Gergawi, M 2011, ‘A Forty Year Old Minority’, Gulf News, Weekend Review,

p.2, Dec. 2.Dickson, H 1936, The Arab of the Desert, George Allen & Unwin, London, p.484.Maktoum, L 2008, Islander, Mark Pilkington, Photographs, Tashkeel, Dubai.Piesik, S 2011, Arish: Palm-Leaf Architecture, Thames & Hudson.Scott-Jackson, J & Scott-Jackson, W & Rose, J & Sabah, J 2008, ‘Investigating

Upper Pleistocene stone tools from Sharjah’, UAE: interim report, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, vol. 38, pp.43-54.

Shore, S 2011, ‘Creating Tradition’, Emirati Expressions, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage.

Stephenson, M & Russell, K & Edgar, D 2010, ‘Islamic hospitality in the UAE: indigenization of products and human capital’, Journal of Islamic Marketing, vol.1.1 pp 9-24.

UAE Government 2011, UAE Vision 2021, UAE Cabinet.

ImagesThe artists’ images are reproduced with permission of the artists. Other images

are either in the public domain or are produced by the author.

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ALL ART IS LOCAL _ THE ROLE OF ART IN SHAPING NATIONAL IDENTITY