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lundi 8 octobre 2012

You can crush the flowers, but you can’t delay spring.

Art historian Bahia Shehab has long been fascinated with the Arabic script for ‘no.’ When revolution swept through Egypt in 2011, she began spraying the image in the streets saying no to dictators, no to military rule and no to violence.

TED Fellow Bahia Shehab sends an important message through her street art in Cairo: “You can crush the flowers, but you can’t delay spring."

A Lebanese-Egyptian artist, designer and art historian, Bahia Shehab studies ancient Arabic script and applies it to modern-day issues. She is the Creative Director with MI7-Cairo, working on projects relevant to cultural heritage. Shehab is also an associate professor at the American University in Cairo, where she has developed a four-year Graphic Design program focusing on the discipline in the Arab world. In addition, Shehab is a TED Fellow and a PhD candidate at Leiden University in Holland.

Shehab notably created a De Beers campaign, which won an International Advertising Association gold award. Her installation A Thousand Times No was displayed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany, and was published as a book by The Khatt Foundation.

But most recently, Shehab has taken her art to the streets of Cairo, stenciling images in support of her country’s revolution.

You can also follow her talk on TED in less than 6 minutes here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bahia_shehab_a_thousand_times_no.html

Bahia Shehab. A Thousand Times No

When you want to deny all of the stereotypes that are imposed on you and that try to define your role in the world.When you want to reject almost every aspect of your reality. When you want to decline every political reality you live under. When you want to dismiss all of the options available to you. When you want to negate all the accusations that go hand in hand with your identity. When you want to refuse to be an imitator or follower of the West, yet you also refuse the regressive interpretation of your heritage. ‘A thousand Nos’ are not enough."

Plexiglass curtain. 2.5 m x 6 m, and 1016 page book documenting the research.

This work is a research-based tribute to the wealth, diversity and
freedom of expression in Islamic art.
It is a rejection of conformity and repression that often plagues
the Arab and Islamic cultures. It traces the history of one letterform
the Lam-alif (which means NO in Arabic), and repeats it a thousand
different times to illustrate the common Arabic expression: “No, and a
thousand times no!”. The book by the same title and also designed for
the installation, is a visual documentation of the different lam-alifs,
their origin, placement and medium chronologically, published by
Khatt Books in Amsterdam, 2010.