happenings

Journeys and Distances

Instillation for the Arab Armerican National Museum

Journeys and Distances
A multi-media and mural instillation exhibition at the Padzieski Gallery to commemorate the opening of the Arab American National Museum.
September 15 - November 5
Opening Reception: Thursday September 15, 7-9pm w/ musicy by Mashriq Ensemble
[ click here to view postcard for exhibit. (jpg) ]
[ click here to view press release. (html) ]
[ click here to view sketches of the mural. ]
"Journeys & Distances" is a project of OTHER-Arab Artists Collective, featuring Radfan Alqirsh, Mohamad Bazzi, Imad Hassan, Michael Mansour, Joe Namy, Rola Nashef, Lana Rahme and Jackie Salloum. The exhibit will focus on the concept of immigrants in a constant state of "journeying." Through emigration, displacement and the search for a better life, people's experiences and lives become linked to the old and the new. Their restlessness does not cease after they settle in their newly adopted country. They live in a state of flux resulting from the hybrid merging of cultures, values and places, as well as from the feeling or the fact that something has been left behind. They constantly migrate back and forth in a search for themselves. This migration may take a physical, emotional or mental form.

Memories are a primary factor in such an existence. The process of journeying carries with it the concept of changing, of varying from the old, of "distance". Distance from, questioning of, or longing for that "previous place".  It is a perpetual, restless, symbiotic dialogue between this and that, where individuals and groups never feel whole when in their sojourn, even when they return back or forth. The installation will explore various psychological, emotional, social, political and personal aspects of these journeys and their distances.

Facing Identity
A permanent multi-media instiallation within the Arab American National Museum.
[ click here to view samples of the instillation. ]

Throughout the 20th century, American stereotypes of the Arab World and Arab Americans moved from the elite realms of art and literature into popular culture. Negative images of Arabs are sustained by songs, television programs, film, consumer products, comic strips, and more recently by national news media.To give an example of the extent at which American visual culture has embedded these images, the media analyst Jack Shaheen, in researching his book "Reel Bad Arabs", reviewed over 1000 movies spanning from the beginning of film to today. Of the 1000 films, 50 portrayed Arabs even handed, and only 12 contained actual positive Arab roles... the rest negative.

This installation presents images of stereotypes from popular media, juxtaposed with a mural that explores images of a more real identity.

For more info on the museum... www.theaanm.org