Women Solidarity: Re-thinking Mid-Twentieth Century Arab Art

Abstract

The research traces Arab artists' movements and histories through rethinking feminist ways of reading art modernities and entanglements. I mainly focus on the work of Tamam Al Akhal, Safia Ferhat, Huguette Caland, Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq, among others as a means of connecting practices. The thesis stages a confrontation between artistic productions and women-led organizations that shaped the historical discourse, from two different periods, using the 1950s and 1990s as pivotal moments in the arts. By investigating the position of women's solidarity in modern society and its relationship to contemporary politics, I seek to show that there is a feminist rhetoric that maintained itself until contemporary times not only as a legacy of the 1950s’ Middle East and NorthAfrica but as an artistic agency that has been recovering from predominant nationalist and colonial view as acounter-discourse. Overall, by revisiting these moments, the research seeks to unravel the dynamics arraying from the production and circulation of ideas as artistic means, and the production of Arab political and feminist discourse in the arts.

Short biography

Lina Ramadan (b. 1990 Qatar) is a curator and writer in contemporary and modern art history, who develops research on post-colonial MENA, women artists and literary productions. Between 2016 and 2021, Ramadan was Assistant Curator at Mathaf: Arab Musuem of Modern Art, Doha, and a Guest Curator in 2022. Ramadan holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Qatar University, 2014; Master’s Degree from University College London Qatar: 2016. Recent curated exhibitions include: Taysir Batniji: No Condition is Permanent (2022-23), Kader Attia: On Silence with Abdellah Karroum (2021); Raqs Media Collective: Still More World (2019); Bouthayna Al Muftah: Echoes (2018). Publications include: “The Palaver Tree'' in Farid Belkahia: For A New Modernity. Ed. Gauthier, m. Centre Pompidou & Mathaf, 2021; “Contemporary Art by Yto Barrada, Mohamed Bourouissa and Iman Issa” forthcoming essay in Avant-garde & Liberation, Ed. Kravagna, C. mumok; “Foreword” in Yemen Art Now forthcoming 2023. Ed. Vartanian Collier, L & Ibrahim, I. Romooz Foundation; “Modern Art in Qatar'' in Modern Art in the Arabian Peninsula, American University of Cairo, forthcoming 2023. Ramadan is currently an author consultant for the Mathaf Encyclopedia, and Editor Curator Fellow 2023-2024 with 421 AbuDhabi. She lives and works between Vienna and Doha.