ArteEast Quarterly—an online journal engaging contemporary practices from the MENA region and its diaspora—is pleased to announce the release of its 2017 Winter issue. Guest edited by curator, writer, and translator Omar Berrada, this issue explores under-acknowledged and enduring histories of slavery and racism in the MENA region.
In recent years, public discussions and political actions around systemic racism and oppression, the militarization of the police, and white supremacy were revived through the work of activist movements such as Black Lives Matter in the USA. In their fight against white supremacy, black and brown lives have formed alliances and a shared front, evoking a militant internationalism that sprang in the 60s and 70s. But racism and oppression are shape shifting and pernicious; in formerly colonial contexts (and not only), oppressed people become oppressors, perpetuating injustice and inequality. Racial prejudices are rooted in the region’s historic involvement in the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean Slave trade. Qatar, for instance, only abolished slavery in 1952, and its domestic and public economy continue to thrive on the back of immigrant labor.
Through personal narratives, migrating images, and essays, this Quarterly issue retraces ruptures and continuities within the economic, cultural, and geographical histories of the MENA region and its complicated relation to the African continent. This issue is also the first in a series of installments aiming to deepen the conversation on the topic.
The Black Athena Collective (Heba Y. Amin and Dawit L. Petros) approach geography through a series of migrating images that challenge and oppose colonial representations of land.
Justin Stearns writes about the recently opened museum of slavery in Qatar to which he took his class on a field trip.
Emmanuel Iduma narrates his time in Morocco through language negotiations strangers or immigrants are often faced with when in a foreign country.
NourbeSe Philip shares a racist incident she experienced when traveling to the Moroccan desert, linking it to deeper histories of oppression.
Rasha Salti retraces the genealogy of reverse-glass painting in Senegal, connecting it to artisanal traditions in Damascus.
In conjunction with the winter issue, cutator Suzy Halajian looks at the work of video artist Basma Al Sharif for the The Gallery section of the Quarterly. Halajian delves into Al Sharif entrancing visual language, a subconscious syntax in which layers of buried and repressed images resurface to reshape our perception of time and memory.
For this issue of ArteEast Quarterly, click here.
Managing Editor: Mirene Arsanios
Copy Editor: Earnestine Qiu
Sign-up to receive the ArteEast Quarterly directly in your mailbox!
