ONE TO WATCH
Sama Alshaibi: The Physicality of Exile
This Iraqi-Palestinian artist grapples with issues of displacement through visceral multi-media works. At her show vs. Him at Dubai’s Lawrie Shabibi Gallery running from 19 September–20 October, Rebecca Anne Proctor discussed her latest works.
Dressed up like a boxer and standing in a spotlight reminiscent of an old Hollywood stage set, a woman with pale skin and short curly black hair is filmed in stop-motion as she fistfights aggressively with a character wearing tight black Lyrca. Known as The Empire, this personage seemingly constitutes the adversary for frustrated individuals. Waving punches in the air, the woman is Sama Alshaibi, a multi-media artist and American citizen of Iraqi and Palestinian descent, whose work struggles with issues of forced migration and the uncertain limbo of statelessness. Born in 1973 in Basra, Iraq to a Palestinian mother and an Iraqi father, in 1985 Alshaibi immigrated with her family to the USA where she completed her BA in Photography at Chicago's Columbia College and subsequently went on to receive an MFA in Photography and Media Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Having grown up in a family affected by war, displacement and exile from two homelands, Alshaibi's work is bred from the constant struggle of the need to make peace with a hybrid identity. "Political power and control can affect what happens to your life - to your presence and to your body and even to the relationship you have with your history. Your entire life takes on a different role based on your national identity and yet, we are all human forms in the end," she says. "I use my body in my work because my work is about identities. Being an Arab-American Iraqi-Palestinian American, I embody the conflict that has been terrorizing the world for the past few decades." Alshaibi's body is a focal point in the works displayed in vs. Him. At first glance, it difficult to see how the images showcased present the changing nature of Middle Eastern masculinities; the viewer is immediately presented with Alshaibi's powerful form seen battling perpetrators or sitting in a variety of evening dresses at dinner next to a Middle Eastern male. With further inspection one realises that these images portray female and male confrontations. Moreover, they aim to capture how the Middle Eastern male seemingly struggles with the greater freedom and empowerment of the region's women, particularly when faced with fewer economic prospects and political instability. In vs. The Ruler, a 2011 sculptural work of two hand-crafted wooden chairs, Alshaibi depicts the state as a patriarch on trial. The chairs represent the male and the female and are embedded with audio-scapes. While the male chair's audio reveals one voice reciting lines from Middle Eastern dictators, the female's recording gathers the artist's Twitter and Facebook feeds documented during the Arab Spring. "I wanted to create an execution chair that was sort of like a dictator. The one who rules the land is male and more robust, whereas the female chair is thinner and represents the people," explains Alshaibi. In other works, she incorporates photography and video embedded in custom-made boxes and stages performances which feature herself as the protagonist to capture the Middle Eastern male in a variety of roles. At once humorous and ironic, Alshaibi is seen in startling evening dresses and wedding gowns provoking her assumed date into numerous stereotypical enactments of the Middle Eastern male. The works in vs. Him were initially conceived at the beginning of the Arab Spring. "This is an amazing time for the revolution because it offers men the opportunity to participate in the system rather than just coping with institutions which oppress them," says Alshaibi. "There are now new opportunities on the horizon and everyone has the possibility of imagining a utopia." Regardless of positive future prospects, the artist believes that the issues, or rather, the conflicts need to be "swallowed". But in order for them to be so, they need to be dealt with, and that is what Alshaibi presents with these works. She gives exile a mental and a physical form. By Rebecca Anne Proctor Vs. Him continues at Lawrie Shabibi Gallery in Dubai from 19 September - 20 October. For more information call +971 43469906 or visit www.lawrieshabibi.com
Sama Alshaibi's 2011 Video Still Vs The Empire. 
