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How One Designer Is Using the Caftan to Bridge Morocco With the West

By

by LIANA SATENSTEIN

VOGUE

Bakchic’s Instagram is basically an ongoing advertisement for all of what Morocco has to offer. It’s a rich feed, full of shots that include plump fresh figs and sequined babouches, Zellige enameled tiles, or a shot of designer Sofia El Arabi posing in front of a whitewashed wall in a bright red fez hat and an armful of silver Berber cuffs. El Arabi embraces all things Morocco, as does her label which includes everything from riffs on traditional caftans to more contemporary pieces like simple tees.

From the looks of El Arabi’s output, both physical and on social media, it would seem that the designer has spent her life dedicated to Moroccan culture, but the idea to create Bakchic stemmed instead from a lack of exposure to her surroundings. El Arabi grew up in a family that she considers “Western oriented,” and spoke French and English while living in Morocco, as well as attending a French-speaking high school. It was only when she returned to Morocco after studying in France that she discovered what her country had to offer. “This period of my life was really about trying to discover Morocco,” she says. “My own identity has been divided between something Eastern and Western so I tried to find a way between these two worlds.” That way came from clothing, and El Arabi soon began making custom caftans for her family. Soon after, El Arabi quit her job at a French television station and launched Bakchic in 2012.

Though El Arabi has amassed more than 35,000 followers on her Instagram, fans of her brand tend to be abroad, rather than in the cosmopolitan areas of Morocco, where general style tends toward a more Western aesthetic. She has found it difficult to tap into the local market. “The problem in Morocco, is that people are not totally proud of this cultural wealth that we have, because no one before really took it seriously,” says El Arabi, “This is a challenge of making Arab style cool again. People are more attracted to the universal culture, which is Western. Universal culture is easier to access. It’s a style that people understand so you don’t really take a risk wearing different clothes.” Of course, there are also the political connotations. “I really wanted to show the world that being Arab doesn’t mean being violent, or all of these cliches that you can watch on TV,” says El Arabi. “Even if you may think that clothing is not as serious, or [cannot] solve the political problems that the world is going through, I think it is cool to communicate a certain identity and vision of the Arabs.” And to that end, El Arabi wears her caftans with Adidas track pants, or blue jeans. “The most important thing to remember is to stay simple because these pieces are full of embroideries,” says El Arabi. “The thing is to wear a pair of jeans for example, or a simple T-shirt, and then to add something Moroccan with embroideries. It’s staying simple on the Western side of your outfit.” The other part? Wearing your culture proudly on your sleeve.

Source: www.vogue.com

Dynamic Arab American Innovators Inducted Into Permanent Museum Exhibit

By

Facial-recognition engineer Rana El Kaliouby, comic book icon Geoff Johns and Olympian Sadam Ali among 10 newly featured Every generation produces special individuals whose character, talent, vision, ambition and determination make them far from ordinary. For them, it’s about making a difference and leaving an enduring legacy. The Arab American National Museum (AANM) pays tribute … Continued

Arab American museum steps into second decade

By

Michael Hodges 

The Detroit News 

When Dearborn’s Arab American National Museum opened in May 2005, it didn’t exactly look like a sure bet.

Start with the difficulties inherent in launching such a museum four years after 9/11, in an era of unprecedented hostility.

Add to that a minuscule budget, limited staff, and the challenge in representing people from 22 separate, and sometimes contentious, Arab states, and a skeptic might reasonably doubt the institution’s odds for long-term survival.

But the tiny museum, with a 2015 budget of $1.9 million — mostly raised from earned income, grants and donations — just wrapped up its 10th-anniversary year, and steps into the next decade punching way above its weight class.

“They’ve done incredible work,” said Juanita Moore, president and CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. “I’m not sure the Detroit community understands what a significant presence they have not just in this area, but nationally as well.”

AANM has become a key cultural player in Metro Detroit, won coveted recognition from the Smithsonian Institution, and — perhaps most significant, given its mission — succeeded in attracting half its 2015 attendance of 52,189 from outside the Arab community.

Founding director Anan Ameri, who retired in 2013, counts that as the institution’s biggest win.

“Our success comes when a non-Arab walks in and says, ‘Oh, this is just like my story.’ ”

The museum, which grew out of a cultural arts program at ACCESS, the Arab-American social services agency in Dearborn, was one year into fundraising for its handsome Michigan Avenue building when the jets pierced the World Trade Center towers in 2001.

“Of course 9/11 made things worse,” Ameri said, “but there’s a silver lining in any disaster.

“In this case, it created more interest, I think, in Arab-Americans. There’s more curiosity now among people who are not biased — and there are a lot of them.”

Ironically, said Matthew Jaber Stiffler, AANM research and content manager, “Instead of being a setback, 9/11 galvanized the community.

“They realized there’s so much misinformation out there, we need a place that can serve as a beacon of knowledge.”

And while Arab-Americans often feel like targets, said museum Director Devon Akmon, “We’re not alone. Latinos also face pressures, sometimes worse than ours.”

Still, noted Ismael Ahmed, who helped found ACCESS, “The museum cannot win the battle for fairness and equality and an end to stereotyping by itself.”

 

Bridging communities

So the museum has consistently reached for programming that bridges communities.

Exhibitions like the current “What We Carried,” a photography show on what Iraqi and Syrian refugees chose to take with them when they fled, emphasize poignant family experience nearly everyone can understand.

Locally, the museum’s culinary walking tours of Dearborn restaurants and groceries are always fully booked, while its Concert of Colors, which kicks off July 14, is a longstanding summer high point attended last year by 50,000 at venues all across town.

That same multi-ethnic musical spirit continues once a month with the museum’s Global Fridays performances.

“Locally they’ve been great bridge builders,” said Moore, whose museum will host the kickoff performance of this year’s Concert of Colors.

“They’ve reached out to all sorts of different communities,” Moore added, “and have been unconventional and groundbreaking in the way they’ve looked at their mission.

“It’s served them and their community very well.”

The museum has garnered unusual national attention. AANM won accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums in record time and was chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to be an affiliate museum, a much-coveted honor.

Just how selective is that program?

“Let me put it this way,” said Harold Closter, who directs the affiliate program.

“There are over 18,000 museums in the United States. Only 210 are Smithsonian affiliates,” with whom the institution shares artifacts, exhibits and educational programming.

“From our perspective,” said Brett Egan, president of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, which advises museums on best practices, “it’s the leading institution in the country representing the voice, traditions and aspirations of the Arab-American community.”

Egan ranks their community engagement programs in “the top tier of similar projects nationally. They’re a leading force not only in their field, but in putting artistic practice at center of the movement to create more vibrant communities.”

Touring nationally

Two AANM-curated shows, “Patriots & Peacemakers: Arab Americans in Service to Our Country” and the more recent “Little Syria,” are on national tours.

The latter, about a one-time Syrian community in Lower Manhattan near the site of the Twin Towers, will open at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration on Oct. 1.

The museum is in talks to take “Patriots & Peacemakers” to the Pentagon next year.

“By taking these stories and placing them in venues that are predominantly non-Arab,” said Akmon, “they get a whole new audience. And at the end of the day, that’s why we exist — to bring people together, and find those points of intersection that make us American.”

Source: www.detroitnews.com

Through ‘encounter,’ ensembles promote Arab culture

By

by Anh Nguyen

Temple-News

Al-Bustan and Prometheus reinterpret the famous piece “Spain” by jazz artist Chick Corea. | COURTESY CHIP COLSON
Inside the Church of the Advocate’s sanctuary, Hanna Khoury stood quietly as the musicians rehearsed their pieces one last time. He shook his head gently, his left foot tapping to the rhythm of the drums. On stage, the musicians followed the melody and not in anyone’s direction. When they wanted to stop, they looked at each other and mildly nodded.

“The sound of the music is wonderful,” said Diana Danot, who came from Ocean City, N.J. to attend the event. “I haven’t heard anything like it before.”

“Musical Encounters,” a three-concert event, brought together Al-Bustan Takht, an ensemble made up of world-renowned musicians in classical Arab music and Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia’s self-managed, self-conducted string ensemble. The final concert was held in the Church of the Advocate at 18th and Diamond streets.

“The purpose of the program is presenting one concert in three different neighborhoods and reaching out to the community,” said Hazami Sayed, executive director in the opening remarks. “[It’s] to showcase the combination of Western classical music and music from the East.”

The previous concerts were held at the Unitarian Society of Germantown and Oxford Mills, which is located in Olde Kensington.

The Takht ensemble is a branch of Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia that seeks to promote conversation and understanding of Arab culture. Al-Bustan has an educational approach with K-12 summer camps and after-school programs to “expose and educate youth and adults of Arab and non-Arab heritage,” according to its website.

“Sayed wanted to find a forum to connect with the Arab culture but not religion based, so she sought out different art forms because they exclude any political or religious affiliation,” said Hanna Khoury, The Takht Ensemble’s music director since 2009.

Al-Bustan emphasizes the education of Arab language, history and culture through choir, dance and percussion, Khoury said.

Founded in 2013, Prometheus, which consists of mostly Temple alumni, took residency at the Church of the Advocate because of its proximity to the university. With frequent shows running and a new season about to unveil, Prometheus offers “high quality entertainment” for the underserved community free of charge, Johnson said.

For the last concert to return to Prometheus’s home, the members of the ensemble wanted the music to foster the neighborhood and the people of North Philadelphia who have been supporting and nurturing its existence.

“Prometheus was born out of the crossroads,” said Johnson, who is the co-founder of the self-managed ensemble. “[It is] where we try to change the way we experience music for both the audience and the performers.”

The mix-and-match production from Prometheus and Al-Bustan Takht traces back to Temple’s Boyer School of Music in 2009. Vena Johnson, who graduated in 2010, was a Violin Performance and Music Education major when she first met Hanna Khoury, who was pursuing a Master of Music Performance at the school.

After their path diverted, Khoury became the Music Director for Al-Bustan Music and led Al-Bustan Takht Ensemble to tour and record with prominent orchestras as well as collaborating with musicians like Lebanese singer Fairouz, Sting and Shakira.

When they met again in 2014, Prometheus collaborated with Al-Bustan to present Marcel Khalife, a well-known Lebanese composer, at Haverford College. After the premiere’s success, the idea of an Arab-Western classical concert consummated into Musical Encounters. Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture was then able to secure funding from PNC Arts Alive, a large initiative designed to support the visual and performing arts in the Greater Philadelphia region, Hazami Sayed said.

The concert started with Prometheus playing a piece by Baroque composer, Antonio Vivaldi. The tacit arrangement was communicated through eye contact and nods, without a conductor.

The distinctive sound of “qanun”, a large string instrument popular in the Middle East, along with the playful, lively and fast-paced sound of percussion added an Arab fusion to popular pieces and genres like Spain by Chick Corea and El Cumbanchero by Rafael Hernandez, a famous Puerto Rican composer.

“It was phenomenal,” said Serge El Helou, the composer of “Lebanese Rhapsody”  after his piece was played by Prometheus and Al-Bustan Takht. “My music was made alive.”

Source: temple-news.com

She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World

By

She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World BY: Clara Ana Ruplinger/Contributing Writer This summer, Washington’s National Museum of women in the arts is displaying She Who Tells a Story, or in Arabic, Rawiya (راوية), which brings together art from 12 women photographers from Iran and the Arab world. The series is as … Continued

America’s Other Orchestras: Arab American Ensemble Series

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BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer Talented artists typically prosper in the U.S. and American audiences are fortunate to have access to world-class music of all genres. Most major cities have full-size orchestras, as do large universities. Some communities are so interested in promoting music education that their high schools have successful classical orchestras. Not counting colleges, … Continued

The Legendary Swords Of Damascus – Now Only Museum Pieces

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BY: Habeeb Salloum/Contributing writer “The Damascene swords are not made any more. We have long lost the secret of how they were produced. There are only a few left, mostly in museums and rare antique shops. But look! I have one here! If you can afford it, its only $10,000.” The Damascene merchant was dramatic … Continued

A vivid reimagining of Palestinian symbols

By

By Nora Parr The Electronic Intifada “The Loud Silence II,” Ibrahim Al Mozain, acrylic on canvas, 40x55cm, 2012. The vibrant and complex works of Gaza-born artist Ibrahim Al Mozain were on exhibit at his first solo Ramallah show in the West Bank city’s Zawyeh Gallery this month. Al Mozain was born in Rafah refugee camp in 1961 … Continued

The Egyptian Satirist Who Inspired A Revolution

By

Through comic dialogues and elegant illustrations in his handwritten newspaper Abou Naddara, the late-nineteenth-century satirist James Sanua galvanized Egyptians against the political ills of their day. By Anna Della Subin and Hussein Omar The New Yorker This past February, in a speech laying out his plans to repay Egypt’s titanic debt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi … Continued

Museum Diplomacy: Could Islamic Art Inspire Middle East Peace?

By

By Pamela Falk 

Observer.com

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. (Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Visitors from around the world flock to the Met to view art history’s great masterpieces and attend fashionable galas, but to negotiate international relations is surely a first. New York’s premier museum recently became the unlikely venue for a high-security, invite-only meeting organized by Samantha Power, President Barack Obama’s envoy to the United Nations. Mixing business with pleasure, the U.S. ambassador invited key international diplomats to tour the museum’s newest exhibition of Islamic art.

Joining Power to see “Court & Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs,” an exhibition of artifacts from a short-lived Turkic dynasty, were diplomats from 15 countries, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Senegal and Palestine. Power’s hope: the historic artworks would provide the edification needed to soften the tone of regional discord. Just a day before the museum tour, Syria’s besieged city of Aleppo was plunged into chaos.

Ambassador Power was once a trusted campaign policy advisor to President Obama, and served as a member of the National Security Council before heading to the U.N. in 2013. With only six months left on at her current post, the ambassador is looking to create legacy results.

“She does a lot of events outside of Turtle Bay,” said Rae Lynn Wargo, an aide to Power.

The ambassador has found taking discussions away from the occasionally numbing rhetoric of the U.N. has proved effective for diplomacy. In the past, Power has sparred on Twitter with outspoken Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin regarding her meeting with the punk band Pussy Riot, played basketball with Arab and Israeli youth, and sung karaoke at the South Korean ambassador’s residence. She frequently brings her work home with her to the Waldorf Tower penthouse she shares with her Harvard professor husband Cass Sunstein.

As it turns out, Power’s tour is not the first time the museum has hosted VIP politicians. When the U.N. General Assembly is on, small groups of government representatives have been known to swing through. Notable visitors included Secretary of State John Kerry and Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, according to the museum’s vice president of communications Elyse Topalian.

The exhibition at the Met includes exquisite relics from an ancient culture that once occupied the now war-torn region spanning Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria from the 11th through 13th centuries. In the show’s catalogue and in an earlier book, historian A.C.S. Peacock wrote that the Sunni nomadic group, who briefly captured Mosul, Iraq, suffered from divisions during its short dynasty, which is best known for its literacy, innovation and religious tolerance.

“In the Middle Ages, many Muslim societies placed great emphasis on learning and had large libraries and great respect for our shared history,” Met Museum president Daniel Weiss said.

Diplomats spent two hours in the galleries, sharing perspectives on the Seljuqs and, it seemed to this reporter (the only member of the media invited), they managed to find some common ground.

Sheila Canby, curator of Islamic art, directed the visiting diplomats to view a 13th century basin from Jazira. “The relationship,” she said of the ancient Muslims and crusaders, “was complicated,” with some conquest and some cooperation.

“It is important to show that Islamic history is not about fanatics waving flags,” said Weiss. “Most people get it that Muslim world history and culture is not about ISIS.”

Amr Al-Azm, an anthropology professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who specializes in the region, joined the tour. “I am like a kid in a candy shop, these are treasures of Islam,” said Al-Azm, an anthropology professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio. “A people without their history are lost.”

Al-Azm told the group that Aleppo’s ISIS brigades, such as the Zangids, take their names from ancient civilizations.

“Those who choose those brigade names, are they on the extremist side? On the al-Nusra side or ISIL?” Power asked, intrigued.

“More on the al-Nusra side,” Al-Azm answered.

“This is not the Security Council,” Jordan’s ambassador Dina Kawar chimed in, eliciting laughter. Evoking candor was the point of Power’s tour.

“The exposition shows a period of our history where cultural influences were able to produce the epitome of beautiful artistic pieces,” said Kawar. “When you see the exposition and you watch D’aesh [ISIS] destroying our cultural heritage, claiming it as unreligious, you realize the urgent need to unite against such a dark force…Cultural diplomacy is certainly the most effective and the most necessary at this stage”

Power pushes hard but artfully, and she may be on the right track. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in diplomatic relations since World War II have occurred outside the hallowed halls of government: in the bucolic estate of Bretton Woods, Camp David, the Wye Plantation, and Potsdam. There has been Henry Kissinger’s “shuttle diplomacy” and Richard Nixon’s “ping-pong” diplomacy. Whether Power’s “museum diplomacy” will help mend Middle East fences is hard to predict, but she succeeded at focusing diplomats on history and art. Not a bad place to get the conversation started before she exits the corridors of the U.N.

Source: observer.com

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