Sophia Al-Maria Troubles Language in Introduction to New Farah Al Qasimi Video at Bidoun

"Farah, we both work in the English language," says writer and filmmaker Sophia Al-Maria to artist and photographer Farah Al Qasimi at Bidoun. Al-Maria's introduction to a new video by Al Qasimi goes on to invoke Etel Adnan, to think through this problem of language: "And we’ve both been told that this means our work panders to a 'western' perspective. I hate this metric. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place." More: 

…Using Arabic in the contexts in which we work can be read as pandering to an appetite for the exotic.

Like, fuck that. As my aunties would say about an annoying child who won’t leave you alone, “Just don’t give them face.”

All of this reminded me of a line in this Etel Adnan book I’ve been reading, There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and the Other: “And why this presence? Does this crowd concern you or me? Can I have anything which will not be shared and what would it be?”

If you don’t figure out how to communicate your story, someone else will project a narrative onto you. And that projection is real violence. The pretension of knowing anyone or anything better than the subject themselves upsets me. That’s why I love writing in the first-person. The “I/we” POV. And that’s why I love reading diaries. Your video reminds me of a diary entry.

The form also rejects the shame people have around private lives and first-person narratives and that’s an act of generosity for anyone struggling with that shame who sees it. I liked it when you said to me, “The people in the work are the audience.” That’s really real.

Read on, and watch the video, "General Behavior," at Bidoun.