| CULTURE | MUSIC
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O
n the floor surrounding Asma Ghanem are the instruments of her art. A xylophone, a melodica, a pair of maracas, an oud, a tambourine, a ukulele and what appears to be a wind-up musical toy are scattered like confetti
around her. Ghanem herself sits silently, her thick, dark eyebrows and blood red lips staring straight ahead. That, at least, is the image Emirates Man recalls.
An image based on snippets of conversation and strewn photographs. Blurry recollections of late nights in Dubai. In reality, she is sitting in an internet café in Toulouse, politely answering our questions. The multidisciplinary artist behind audio-visual
project Shams Asma, Ghanem has been busy creating a name for herself in the world of experimental music. Her avant garde take on sound in the Arab world has found a ready audience amongst the disillusioned and the shell-shocked, while her exploration of the realm between reality and illusion in the Levant has come to a head. Awarded funding from the Arab Fund For Arts And Culture, she is working on the production of her debut album alongside artists and musicians focussed on the concept of The Occupied Sound, with last summer’s war on Gaza the inspiration behind that concept. Her music is at times beguiling, at others
impenetrable. Rhythm and melody are more often than not absent, while the sounds of machines, movement, war and instruments are utilised in order to question not only music itself, but sound in general. At times she talks or sings, her voice heavy with the strains of desire, although there is no discernible ambition to create music in a traditional sense. In Comme Promis je t’écris Une Lettre en Arab her vocals glide over minimalist electronica, while a collaboration with electronic musician and rapper Stormtrap moulds the sounds of gunfire into ambient reflections. In places, Arabic movies have been toyed
with, while in What Is Philistine? a father and son’s conversation around the word ‘philistine’ plays over the top of what sounds like radio interference, an un-tuned television set, crickets and sci-fi distortions. “My inspiration comes from my environment, but all
the art I create is connected and affected by my childhood and memories,” says Ghanem, who was born and raised in Damascus. “Because when I was a child it was hard to understand my situation as a refugee. This situation that most Palestinians lived, and still live, was interesting to think about – about how everything connects and relates to art and music because for me it was the only world I could be in without limits. Art was also something I could make and my parents couldn’t correct me. I was this child who was completely amazed by art. “I remember once my teacher asked, ‘What would
“Art was something I could make and my parents wouldn’t correct me”
you like to be in the future?’ Most of the other students wanted to be doctors, architects or lawyers. I said, ‘I want to be a painter.’ I didn’t know that I could use the term ‘artist’, so the students laughed and the teacher too. She said ‘Painter? That’s nice for children, but can you imagine an adult being just a painter? How could you survive in life and make money?’ I said, ‘My sister is a poet and this is what I like.’ That was another reason to make her laugh because ‘she knows life better’.” In the flesh a few months earlier, Ghanem intrigues,
her talk of imagination and expression heightening curiosity. She once said that Shams Asma was the direct result of her inability to pursue musical education as a child, whilst much of her work is a consequence of her status as a refugee. She is also an anomaly. Or at least one of only a small band of experimental musicians and sound artists in the Arab world who delve into the obscure. Artists such as Sary Moussa (a.k.a Radio KVM) and Jad Atoui in Lebanon; Donia Jarrar and Stormtrap in Palestine; and Ismail Seleit and Mohamad Ali Talybab of Elmanzouma in Egypt.
emirates man
apr/may 2015
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