installation view, Bilingual Camel, Metal construction filled with bilingual Art Publications,
Sharjah Art Biennale 13, UAE, 2017
The Bilingual Camel, as a mobile bookstore of globalization, draws together these two materials into a single Duo-Orientalist hybrid. For visitors of this exhibition, the wood and metal design of the work might make it resemble a Trojan Horse, but in the shape of a camel. In other words, it’s a Trojan Camel, bearing inside Arabic books of new codes that disseminate, change, influence, destroy, correct, and incite debate, thought, and criticism.
For the past centuries and even today, the West has considered the camel as a key stereotypical image of the East: Orientalist tales, books, paintings, sculptures, holiday photo albums, postcards, and documentary films have all celebrated the camel as an image of the uncivilized Otherness of the East. Despite the stereotype that the camel represents, this creature has long served as a lifeblood and means of transportation, in terms of economy and culture, for those who live in the East. Indeed, the camel was central to trade and cultural – and even religious – exchange between geographic regions.
The politico-cultural transformations and the geopolitical shifts of the East following the colonial period have obligated the West to create a new image for the East, to attempt to replace barbarity with another civilizational, cultural image. With the rise of the age of globalization, the nineties and 2000s were an important moment in the construction of this new image for the East: the image of modern culture.
During this era, as the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa (EMNA) region bore witness to a the burgeoning of modern artistic and cultural institutions, new artistic disciplines began to enter the Arab cultural scene. These disciplines carried within them concepts, themes, and notions – all appropriated and invoked by the elite artists in the diaspora. With September 11 and with the widening of cultural globalization, Western interest in the cultures and art of the Arab and Islamic world has heightened, thus increasing the need to create a nonviolent – nay a civilized, intellectual image of the East. From the vantage point of the West, modern culture could stand as this image.
The burgeoning of Arab modern art institutions occurred at the very climax of the role of cultural globalization, which presupposes the construction of single world wherein similarities reign among languages in currency and cultures in practice. Alongside this burgeoning was a surge in the production of bilingual art books, accompanying art projects, as part of an effort to document and at cultural exchange.
The politico-cultural transformations and the geopolitical shifts of the East following the colonial period have obligated the West to create a new image for the East, to attempt to replace barbarity with another civilizational, cultural image. With the rise of the age of globalization, the nineties and 2000s were an important moment in the construction of this new image for the East: the image of modern culture.
During this era, as the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa (EMNA) region bore witness to a the burgeoning of modern artistic and cultural institutions, new artistic disciplines began to enter the Arab cultural scene. These disciplines carried within them concepts, themes, and notions – all appropriated and invoked by the elite artists in the diaspora. With September 11 and with the widening of cultural globalization, Western interest in the cultures and art of the Arab and Islamic world has heightened, thus increasing the need to create a nonviolent – nay a civilized, intellectual image of the East. From the vantage point of the West, modern culture could stand as this image.
The burgeoning of Arab modern art institutions occurred at the very climax of the role of cultural globalization, which presupposes the construction of single world wherein similarities reign among languages in currency and cultures in practice. Alongside this burgeoning was a surge in the production of bilingual art books, accompanying art projects, as part of an effort to document and at cultural exchange.
To return to the discussion about the CAMEL as well as about the content and language of these books, upon which we elaborated above, they reflect a painstaking effort to create an image of equivalence between Arab and Western: there stands the Arab as a match to the West, seeking to satisfy the need for the new image of the East, represented in the Arab side of these books. In that regard, the function of these books is similar to that of the camel, both “material representations” of the East through the image.
Despite this modern Orientalist image, which the East reproduces independently in turn, these art books and so too the camel remain at the mercy of their producers; furthermore, those who participate in such projects are the agents of cultural exchange. Like the camel, these books can move around in the globalized art world, through all its cities and institutions. Like the camel, they are a vehicle of exchange among Eastern cultures themselves.
Despite this modern Orientalist image, which the East reproduces independently in turn, these art books and so too the camel remain at the mercy of their producers; furthermore, those who participate in such projects are the agents of cultural exchange. Like the camel, these books can move around in the globalized art world, through all its cities and institutions. Like the camel, they are a vehicle of exchange among Eastern cultures themselves.
