In the Open, because most things in Bahrain are not. The dress code, laws, and the social mores, all create a sphere in which people’s public life is inevitably tailored, and most personal expressions are transported in-doors. The exhibition at the Edge of Arabia’s new home in Battersea and part of London’s Shubbak Festival, showcased works of contemporary artists from Kingdom of Bahrain, including Asia Fuse, Camille Zakharia, Ghada Khunji, Hasan Hujairi, Jenine Sharabi, Mohammed Al Mahdi, and Waheeda Malullah.
“There has been a lot of regional focus for example on Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. And I just thought it’s a shame that the talent in Bahrain is not recognized,” says curator Latifa Al Khalifa. Such a comprehensive peak into the small island’s contemporary art is the first of its kind in the UK. And it is all the more relevant now that the country has been in news for the troubles in the past two years, with frequent clashes between Shia populations and the Sunni-ruled kingdom. But Bahrain has been keen on nurturing and promoting its artists, participating in art fairs and hosting them as well. In The Open got support and funding from the Ministry of Culture.
The country’s tight-knit art community, as expressed by Jenine Sharabi, and its enthusiasm for making a mark in contemporary Middle Eastern art scene, has meant that many artists are energetically producing works without the pressures of a heavily anchored national repertoire. Sharabi’s Public Display of Affection is a series of simple designs depicting a couple (the woman in an abaya, the man in a thobe) in amorous poses, embracing each other in one panel, kissing in the other, on a piggyback or just holding hands. They are reminiscent of American ‘50s-style postcards of young love, except with the Bahraini attire. The postures are tamed and innocent, though Sharabi described them as “risqué” given their conservative context and the audience they were intended for back home. “All of the things that happen in these illustrations happen behind closed doors, so why not express them and challenge people’s ideologies about themselves,” she said. As for the Western audience, in the past few years they’ve been more exposed to the image of women in the abaya in the media – so they identify it immediately. Yet “often there are a lot of generalizations that are made about these women, but at the end of the day they’re people as well. They have emotions too,” Sharabi said.
Bahrain is not the only country with normative ideologies governing social behavior – think of Saudi Arabia or Iran, which in different ways and degrees have a similar approach to how people must conduct themselves, dress and behave, where visible. The three countries are also neighbors, with a long history and competing claims over Bahrain, a small nation with population of over 1.3 million. But flipping the lid off these unison images reveals a bustling, vibrant youth, constantly recreating and challenging their surroundings, and voicing their own complex identities and cultures. These expressions may be political, but not always – not necessarily. “Ultimately I wanted to create a platform for them. I wanted them to tell me what they want, rather than me telling them what they want,” Al Khalifa says.
Hasan Hujairi takes on this notion of expression in his noisy, interactive audio/visual installation, Room for Evasive Explorers. Five microphones are hung from chains in front of a light projection, along with a sound-scape that he captured and edited over time. Speaking (or screaming) into the microphones would turn the screen red— a not-so-indirect interpretation of freedom of expression and its price. He later told me that the indistinguishable audio background included sounds of protests and other such events.
Hujairi is an experienced sound artist, but while his discography seems crude at times, he is allowing himself to grow in front of an audience – an audience that he certainly employs. His performances are magnifying if nothing else, some times in the middle of an open space, some times just him behind a computer playing an electric oud. He is now living in Tokyo while finishing his Doctor of Musical Arts, and the minimalism and precision of his work seem to have developed throughout this time.
In a different corner of the exhibition, Asia Fuse sets aside the politics for ink-on-paper profiles of monsters and humanoids that emerge from one side of a paper like thirsty vegetables. Her simple parameters and committed lines make for refreshing illustrations that you want to stare at for a while – and you don’t ask or care where the artist is from.
Then there is Ghada Khunji’s The Wall Whisperer, covering an entire wall with a mosaic of miniature photos, all taken from around Bahrain and most of them of derelict corners and forgotten graffities. Each viewer was also given a small magnifier in the size and as thin as a business card, to look closer. Like a fly’s eye, the photos gave a kaleidoscopic view of a hidden city, with passersby traipsing around lonely landscapes. Stepping back, the composition gave the general idea and shape of a cloud, or a tree, hovering menacingly on the wall. It was a touching experiment though some how not fully effective. Perhaps given a magnifier to look at something does build you up for a more unexpected discovery.
Such dualities of distance vs. proximity, observing from afar vs. sticking in your nose, are masterfully played out by Mohammed Al Mahdi. In Untitled, he has a boat (Noah’s arc) and stick-like figures of animals and humans, all under a rainbow, in the form of a child’s dreams and an adult’s nightmares. There is something so pure yet deceptively mature about the tales he depicts, with a washed out background and a thick palette of whites and bright colours, defined with black lines. His other work (also Untitled) is red, blood red, more disoriented and confused. He told me he painted the second one after the recent political turmoil in the country.
Al Mahdi’s works have been steadily gaining recognition in the Kingdom and also the Middle East art scene (he’s been sold at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and has won numerous awards). In person he comes off as a shy, “regular” person, though his introversion seems to be an effort to avoid wasting words. And in his art, this astutely contained personality, unleashes an intelligent manifesto of those simple lines and angles and colours -those forms- that are the difference between war and peace, love and hate, childhood and the rest.
When I asked him how he got into art he said, “I ask myself the same question!” A question for which the answer is most definitely irrelevant.