4 Profile


Exhibition view of I am Hymns of the New Temples (2023), Sfeir-Semler Gallery Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg


2011, events can be understood in this geographical area, including Egypt. As a result, my undertakings stop in 2010. From 2011 onwards, it is a whole


new chapter that to me remains extremely vague as I do not know what this is or what it means. As an artist, I prefer to deal with what has been happening before, basically any period prior to the Arab Spring. If we think of Hosni Mubarak (1928-2020), for example, we can now look at the Mubarak era as I find we can easily analyse it in conjunction with what happened in the region during that time. Te Arab Spring created various effects and had different consequences, meaning that starting in 2011, we are looking at a completely new chapter. Presently, the world is quite chaotic, and I do not know what to make of it, especially in Egypt with President El-Sisi (b 1954). Consequently, I feel that time frame cannot be analysed enough to the degree of making art.


AAN: Before embarking on a film and writing the script, while researching, what catches your attention towards choosing one distinct moment in history? Is it the injustice, the greed, or keeping a memory alive so people do not forget what the triggering factor was? WS: Most of the time, I am fascinated by this idea of the dream of development. Tis dream of development can even come from a religious point of view, as is best exemplified by the speech given by Pope Urban II in 1094 in Clermont, France. In this very speech, the Pope is trying to explain to the Europeans that the reason why they are fighting with each other is because they do not have enough resources and not enough land. He is demonstrating that by moving to the east, they would find much more land and resources. As a result, by going there, people would ascend to a higher level, but at the same time, the Pope emphasised that if someone were to die on the trip, he would ensure their seat in heaven. Ensuring a seat in heaven can be


called a ‘Christian Jihad’, since it is based on this one idea that death will lead to a higher place if they are following the Pope’s or religious direction. Ultimately, for me, when I try to look at all these chapters, including the Crusade’s history, there is a lot of complexity in it as there is a religious background. Even though we do not know for certain, I assume that Pope Urban II really believed in what he was saying and had enough


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Roman Woman 6 (2022), ceramic, clay and oil paint, 38 × 26 × 17 cm, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg


charisma to convince all these people to move to Constantinople. Some of them even walked to Constantinople, with half of the first wave dying of hunger. When we try to understand this story, we feel that it is always based on people with this will of developing from one system to a higher system, even if it is based on religious aspects, with the desire to go from one system to a higher one to go to heaven. Usually, most of my work is about people in transition as they find themselves within this dream to move.


AAN: However, most times the dream and the transition come at a cost, is that not so? WS: Yes, it does, but there is an outcome. For example, the first internationally recognised film I did was called Te Cave, where I walked into a supermarket, reciting this chapter from the Quran called ‘Te Cave’. Te idea about the cave is all


Maccus 3 (2022), ceramic, clay and oil paint, 37 × 28 × 15 cm, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg


about migration. Basically, the story within the surah (a chapter of the Quran) is about the Prophet, like Moses for example. Moses went from one place to another to gain more knowledge and power. He was then asked by God to go and meet Al-Khidr, a man who was not a prophet, but someone who had wisdom and knowledge. So, God told Moses to go and find Al-Khidr to learn from him, but Moses was not patient enough. Tis story shows us this relationship between two people – a prophet and a knowledgeable man – and how in the end, Moses was not patient enough to learn from him. However, he nevertheless did make the trip to meet the person, he did make this migration to gain this knowledge. Every story in this surah tells you that you must travel to get knowledge and power, and that you subsequently need to come back to help your own people.


Frog 3 (2022), ceramic, clay and oil paint, 33 × 27 × 18 cm, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/Hamburg


Tis is the surah’s basic message. Similarly, in one of the stories in a


surah, which is about the seven sleepers, these young men who believe in God are seeking his help to protect them from the people in the village who are non-believers. As the village wanted to kill them, they asked God to protect them. Tey find a cave nearby where they hide and sleep for 309 years. In this case, the sleeping act itself becomes a form of migration because ultimately, it provides the same outcome after 309 years, the young men wake up to find that their story became something like a wisdom for the whole village. People living there had become more religious because of them. Once again, I am referring to the format that always fascinates me, namely this idea about a moving humanity to reach something higher.


AAN: Do you feel we actually learn something from history, or do we


ultimately tend to fall back into the same mistakes? What is your view considering that various events seem to repeat themselves at a higher frequency and with higher intensity? WS: Based on my reading, we are of course repeating a lot of our mistakes. However, and this is the truly surprising part, even though we are making the same mistakes over and over again, that does not mean that history is repeating itself. What leads us to believe that history is repeating itself are the results – as opposed to the causes – of something that happened sometimes over a thousand years ago. Nothing ever vanishes or can be erased from history: by doing something to humanity today, the results in history will unquestionably be visible a hundred or even a thousand years later, with nothing having disappeared. People tend to think that all the genocides that have taken place throughout history can just be erased from memory. Tat is simply impossible. Tat is the cycle of history and at times, it is extremely bloody, vicious, but simultaneously, there is humour in it because one can identify how it is happening again almost in the same way. Surprisingly, we tend to make an analogy to events that happened in the past and consider them the same, even though they are not. Te result is simply the same, like the result of the Crusades for example, which is what is still present in people’s memory today. It has shaped the relationship between West and East, a significant aspect that cannot be ignored. Tis is precisely the reason why as an artist it is even more important for me to try to understand this history. It has nothing to do with the idea that I am attempting to show that the Arab history is ‘correct’ or ‘clean’. I simply just want to try to understand it from the Arab point of view, based on Arab writers and Arab historians, and how they saw things during that time. Ultimately, that is the way we humans make analysis even though we can never get a definite answer as it is a never-ending process.


Untitled IV (2023), oil on canvas, 46 × 61.7 cm, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beiru /Hamburg


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Untitled VII (2023), oil on canvas, 45.5 × 61.2 cm, courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beiru /Hamburg


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AAN: At some point, you were reluctant to collaborate with adults, preferring to work with marionettes and children. For the film Drama 1882, what prompted you to bend your rules and work with adults? WS: Looking back at my practice, it has been a transition from working with marionettes to working with children and subsequently with


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