Narrations Print Project
Part of the Re-interpreting the Middle East II: Artists Re-thinking Today’s Terminolog portfolio. Organized by May Abu-Taam, Presented at Southern Graphic Conference,VCU Richmond, VA.
Portfolio includes artist/ printmakers from across the United States and the Middle East. Context/Concept: Although the West’s marginalization of Middle Eastern culture has long been the object of postmodern critical analysis, current geo-political dissension and conflict continue to make this issue both urgent and crucial. In their work, the artists participating in this print exchange seek to question the power of representation and counter-representation in the stereotyping of “East” and “West.” This project seeks to employ innovative pictorial and rhetorical strategies such as those of linkage, suturing, bridging, fusion and hybridization to address this problem. Although this project features groups of artists dealing with these specific cultures, it represents a wider spectrum of views and is not limited to one major group. Inviting participation from printmakers from a variety of countries globalizes the project and thereby extends the range of perspectives on the Middle East. As a single formal constraint for all work, participants have been asked to use a split or divided picture plane in order to negotiate their personal response to this issue each from their own perspective.