 It's it's such a pleasure to see this place so full for an event like this at a time like this Well, first of all, let me introduce myself because I am new to this Institution I'm Lena Kattib and I have the pleasure of introducing myself as the director of the so as Middle East Institute And first of all I want to say a warm welcome to your Excellencies who have made the time to be here with us today even though of course There is a lot more going on in this in this region I highly appreciate the presence of the ambassador of the UAE and the ambassador of Palestine joining us tonight And of course all the members of the diplomatic services who are also with us tonight There's too many of you to to name but it's really very Encouraging to be honest to see that at a time like this the Middle East Still looms large in our hearts, and this is what the SME I the so as Middle East Institute is all about I have the pleasure of welcoming Caroline and certain Lancaster from the Muhammad bin Aisa Al Jabir Foundation now you may not know or you may know that the origins of the SME I Began a long time ago here at so as as the LME I which at the time stood for the London Middle East Institute And it was thanks to Sheikh Muhammad Ben Aisa Al Jabir and his foundation that the seed was planted for us to be here today Because that was how the SME I began for many years It was known as the London Middle East Institute and it did really great work to really put the Middle East at the heart of London Here we are now in a new iteration Celebrating tonight the launch of the new so as Middle East Institute emphasizing that this is very much about so as and how much we love being Affiliated with so as as a place that really embraces creative thinking and Innovation about the region and here again I have to send huge thanks to our director professor Adam Habib who is also gracing us without with his presence tonight Who is playing a? Huge role in transforming so as to what it is today Which is a place that is globally connected not just when it comes to the Middle East, but the rest of the world This is the place where the creative thinking is happening This is the place where great people like yourselves come together and engage in Fantastic conversations not just about the challenges That the world is facing and here particularly the Middle East and particularly at this time of great turmoil in the region Where as we know there is devastation at an unprecedented scale especially in Gaza and this is something that we as the so as Middle East Institute have been engaging very closely on and Not just through looking at The challenges and the suffering of the people which of course is very important But also through shedding light on the creativity shedding light on the talent shedding light on all the positive stories that happen in this region in spite of all this turmoil in spite of all the violence all the suffering This is a Middle East that we are proud of and that you know I'm so happy that all of you are here to Celebrate with us having the saw us Middle East Institute as a platform for talking about these issues for highlighting All the positive stuff happening in the region, but also thinking about Solutions and potential alternatives for the challenges faced in this region and in this regard There's no better person To inaugurate the saw as Middle East Institute through a public lecture than she's Sultan Saud al-Qasimi She's Sultan needs no introduction But I will just briefly say he is one of the most renowned public intellectuals of the Arab world He is a Commentator and a thinker and a writer on politics art culture He is a champion of art from the Arab world Especially contemporary and modern art and he in fact is one of the world's biggest collectors of art from the region and Some of you may know that he has spent the last few years giving a course that he designed on Politics and art from the Arab world at renowned universities all over the world and I'm very happy to announce tonight That we have Sultan having behind the scenes been working with some of our students at saw as from the from different disciplines But mainly from the school of art on Co-curating an exhibition that we're gonna host at the Brunei gallery here at saw as From July till September this year and it's co-curated by saw as students using the bergiel art foundation Which is the art foundation that hosts Sultan's collection It's a foundation that he created due to his passion about art From the region he is someone who represents the values of the saw as Middle East Institute in terms of Progressive thinking in terms of ethics in terms of focusing on creativity, but also diversity Which is at the heart of the Middle East so without further ado Please welcome Sheksohtan Good evening everybody and thanks to my dear friend Lena Khateeb for this very very generous introduction to be to be said to embody the values of the school of Oriental and African Studies and the Middle East Institute is A huge honor that I hope I can live up to I also want to say that It's a huge honor to be addressing a crowd that includes so many renowned individuals Including their excellencies the ambassadors who are here mr. Adam Habib Some of some some scholars that I that I follow and I and I admire so much and a lot of the research that you will see here emanates from Individuals who are here in this room today Venetia Porter, of course Nadine or a Dean over there my sake I feel And so many others I need to wear my glasses just to check who else is here But so many others we have Saib Eigner, I mean this room is bursting with with the intellect and with some of the Most important scholars, of course, dr. Ramuni. I mean I can go on and on there are so many people here So congratulations, and I think congratulations to me that I was able to attract all So lower your expectations And finally You know we are gonna be going since some of you didn't know what the talk is about they asked me What does this talk about? I think people just wanted to meet each other and and see each other in different circumstances so this is a talk about Political art by Arab women artists, so there's nothing by men in this this presentation It's 100% works by women artists from across the Arab world So we will go on a journey across the Arab world through the eyes And the paintbrushes of women artists Let me begin by saying As someone who is interested in Arab modernity and the 20th century especially I Often think of art in historical context the Egyptian revolution of 1919 that led to the commissioning of Mahmoud Muhtar's Renaissance, Egypt or Egypt's awakening Monument or the Nekba or catastrophe of 1948 that resulted in the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians including artists such as Ismael Shamoud and Zulfa Asadi and the courageous Algerian uprising against the vicious French occupation in the 1950s and 1960s that was captured in countless monuments songs stories and artworks Today, however numerous other natural disasters and Political conflicts have plagued our region causing the destruction of homes and lives and livelihoods in Sudan It has sent tens of thousands into Kenya Egypt and Ethiopia Including artists Galal Yusuf the beyond Bahari Bakri Muath Yasir Al-Ghari and Hani Khalil Jaudat and Sadly in our beloved Palestine another Nekba or catastrophe is taking place in front of our very eyes and screens Resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and destruction of infrastructure including cultural institutions Already we lost leading poets such as Rafa Al-Areer Photographers including Majd Arandes and painter Muhammad Sami and on October 13th, 2023 Hibbe Zaghoud a 39 year old painter that captured Palestinians homes Landscapes and individuals focusing on Palestinian identity was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza She was one of countless victims of the ongoing Israeli aggression Against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank It seems humanity's cruelest attributes have resurfaced in the 21st century and there is no end in sight To the death and carnage history However, also shows us that good must prevail over evil and right over wrong no matter how long it takes Now to today's lecture just over a century ago in 1923 the Egyptian feminist union held its first meeting in the house of pioneering feminist Huda Sharawee Said to be an artist herself Demanding the reformation of the personal status law as well as women's suffrage in the meantime and despite They're not yet being a school of fine arts for women leading women Names started to emerge such as Amy Nimmer In fact, when the Cairo Fine Arts Institute was inaugurated in 1908 with an impressive role of students including Mahmoud Sa'eet Rahab Ayaad and Yusuf Kamal. It did not include a single female Student women in Egypt and across the Arab world would have to wait almost three decades Until an institution dedicated to training women Artists was opened in 1937 This may explain why young Egyptian women such as the aforementioned Amy Nimmer Resorted to studying abroad in institutions such as the Slade School of Fine Arts here in London where she enrolled in 1916 This three decade gap effectively meant that men had a head start of an entire Generation over their female peers thereby allowing them to ingrain themselves in society and be included in major museums and collections of Institutions such as the Cairo Museum of Modern Art that was opened in 1932 Lack of education Opportunities however was not the only obstacle that women artists faced across the Arab world Islamic inheritance law also meant that they would have less access to funds In case a parent passes away and social norms added an extra layer of challenge The 1920s witnessed a proliferation of women artists from across the Arab world in addition to the aforementioned Amy Nimmer of Egypt names such as Mary Sheeha had that Emerged in Lebanon while Sophie Halabi's landscape of Palestine reflected the serene beauty of the land Marie Haddad who was born to a prominent family of Lebanese bankers started exhibiting in the 1920s in Beirut and in 1933 through a political contact exhibiting Namely the French ambassador to Lebanon Le Conte de Maktel She was invited to take part in the prestigious Salon d'Otton de Grand Palais Thereby becoming the first Lebanese artist to do so She would later take part in the official Lebanese pavilion of the famous New York World's Fair of 1939 both a Political and spiritual statement Haddad would employ her paintbrush to depict Salim Al-Ashi Arrival of the Lebanese president Bishara al-Khouri The 1930s ladies and gentlemen was a decade of great promise in the Arab world It witnessed the first solo exhibition of a female artist perhaps anywhere in the region that of Zulfa As-Sadi Who's July 1933 debut at the Palestine Pavilion at the first National Arab Fair in Jerusalem included paintings of leaders such as Salah al-Din Who recaptured the holy city of Jerusalem from the crusaders in 1187 CE and Sharif Hussain bin Ali leader of the great Arab revolt Sadly few of her work survived as she was displaced in the Nakba of 1948 settling in Damascus until her passing and is said to have never painted again Other parts of the Arab world such as Tunisia So artists such as Saeeda bin Salah who's paintings depicted Tunisian women and who participated in the country's official art salon for more than one year But sadly faded into obscurity following her passing in the 1940s Witnessed a number of major developments with the first ever solo exhibition of an Arab female artist in a Western institution 1949 Iraq's Madiha Omar Held her first exhibition at the Peabody Library at Georgetown University where she was studying Following followed by another show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art the following year 1950 women's paintings became bolder and More assertive as the second half of the 20th century commenced and calls for national independence grew for instance in demonstration a 1949 painting by Tahia Haleem a large group of protesting Egyptians are seen carrying banners and Pushing against royal Egyptian guards wearing the tarbouche or a fez This event may be related to the assassination of the Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan al-Banna on the 12th of February 1949 whose death was blamed blamed on Egyptian secret police in 1959 in 1951 NGF Latoun created a painting titled we cannot forget Depicting four coffins shrouded in the flag of Egypt a drape with a crescent and three stars Being carried by a sea of people these coffins were set to contain the corpses of Citizens from the Suez who died while protesting the British occupation of Egypt It is said that stencils were created from this artwork and numerous replicas Were made of it although the final fate of this work is unknown the subsequent collapse of the Egyptian monarchy the following year Emboldened women artists to depict scenes that they may perhaps were reluctant to portray During the years of the monarchy for instance in this 1955 painting by gas be a Siri The infamous 1947 Mahalla incident where in order to quell a strike by factory workers Supported by student activists the Egyptian government deployed troops and tanks killing three workers And injuring 17 more the authorities response was set to have been so harsh that protesters Were pushed into the Nile Delta other artists who have revisited past themes of Brutality and injustice include in G if Latoun's depiction of British forces overseeing the execution of an Egyptian farmer named Hassan Mahfoud in the Dinshawai incident of 1906 British soldiers are depicted standing in formation overseeing the Executions while holding rifles while the corpse of an Egyptian citizen is carried away and the family is watching in the background in January 1952 this was the original slide I was going to begin with Less than two miles from where we are now sat The Institute of Contemporary Arts of London launched an international sculpture competition to commemorate and I quote all those Unknown men and women who in our time have been deprived of their lives or their liberty in the cause of human freedom And quote the competition garnered global interest with three and a half thousand Submissions and 80 works that were entered into the competition Including Iraq's Jawad Salim, which you see here on the left. This is the only work by a male artist in the presentation Maked for a monument to the unknown political prisoner 1952 1953 was Amongst and Fatima. I'm sorry amongst the array of artists who sent in proposals Was a lesser-known female Palestinian artist called Fatima. I love who was born in Jericho in 1920 And educated in Egypt's prestigious higher Institute of Fine Arts in Cairo She emphasized the female figure standing up With her eyes Blindfolded surrounded by three kneeling individuals one child and two adults her right hand is carrying a scroll Indicating her plight their representation of a woman's body as a political prisoner was clearly a conscious choice By the artist whose submission was one of 80 accepted into the competition Jewish women artists of the Arab world also actively depicted political events amongst them was Mariam Ben Ne Mariles Ben Haim like many of her fellow communists from across the Arab world Ben was actively engaged in the anti-colonial movement and supported the Algerian National Liberation Front for which she was sentenced in absentia to 20 years hard labor in this 1960s artwork Mariam Ben references a notorious incident on the 8th of February 1962 known as the Sharon subway massacre in the 20th agendissement in Paris in which nine anti-colonial protesters were killed by the French gendarmerie and over a hundred and twenty were injured She denounces the OAS the organization army secret the French paramilitary organization that brutally suppressed Algerians in fact the Algerian war of independence was a pivotal moment for many women artists of the Arab world Singers such as worda al-jaza area where the the Algerian and fairies sang songs of solidarity and freedom specifically naming activists such as Jamila Buhirid and their in their lyrics while the war pushed poet and writer a tell Adnan to start writing in English as a protest against the French establishment and also Shifting her focus to visual art as a creative means of expression Which is why you see a tell Adnan's work sort of emerging in the 1950s in her third and fourth decade Baya the acclaimed Algerian artist was also said to have refrained from painting during the eight-year long Algerian Struggle for independence other artists adopted a more literal and figurative method From Syria, we see the work of Hala Kwakli Who came from an Arab nationalist household? Her father being the former president of Syria Shukri Kwakli Kwakli depict the aforementioned Algerian independence icon Jamila Buhirid Surrounded by other protesters as she reads a declaration under the Algerian flag in 1958 only a black and white picture of this painting exists And according to the artist it may have been bought by someone from the Algerian Embassy in Damascus. We have no idea where it is By the late 1960s and 70s the theme of women as refugees was repeatedly visited During this period by Arab women artists amongst them was Egypt's Zayn Abisagini Whose monochromatic somber painting depicts a group of women huddled together While a child is covering her eyes Let me move to the gulf In 1977 Dubai born artist Ajat Makki received a scholarship from the government to study in the College of Fine Arts in Cairo During the studies. She produced this relief sculpture a clay composition Titled Palestine which depicts four women and three doves one of which appears to be imprisoned Behind steel bars while another is perched on an olive tree branch which continues to be a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance in The center of the relief is a woman wearing a traditional Araki a woven head cover traditionally worn by married women in parts of Palestine Looking over her daughter with an eye of concern for her well-being in the center of the relief appears the word Allah Which is a reference to the strong faith that these Palestinian women hold According to the artist daughter Elsa Martian writing in Oghiam Vantanyam Simone Baltaxi was born to immigrants parents who fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Ukraine in the early years of the 20th century after escaping anti-Jewish raids in In France she left Paris for Lebanon in the 1950s She was one of the first foreigners and moreover Jewish to go to the Palestinian refugee camps She brought back several studies which depict their miserable condition just a few years after the Nekba on The lower right of the foreground of this painting. We see a group of children Innocently playing while the center depicts a standing mother nursing her infant while in the background The while the background is dotted with tents that many thought would be a temporary shelter Until they were allowed to return to the homes that they fled in 1948 Another lesser known Artist is Suad Malhath who was an active member of the Jama'i The fan the Arab artist group of Jordan later changed to rabid change to rabid at the Fennanine Tashkili in Jordanian the Jordanian plastic arts Association which was established in Amman in the 1970s according to researcher Yasmeen to Khan Such associations offered a space to reflect on and impact the potential movements of the time Malhaths depicts a group of women in refugee camp Surrounded by tents while two white pigeons or doves are perched on a wooden ledge nearby Perhaps as a symbol of elusive peace The tragedy of Gaza Was definitely was definitely depicted by its very own late great Layla Showa who lived in London for a number of decades before she passed away in October 2022 Showa went on to create a number of artworks depicting Palestinian suffering at the hands of the occupation Including in this 1989 painting titled the three Marys of Gaza Which captures the agony of Palestinian mothers in the wake of the first intifada of 1987 which saw the killing of 142 Palestinians in its first year alone in her 1965 painting titled Gaza the artist depicts a cactus grove laid on a plain Brown background the cactus for many is a symbol of perseverance and strength characteristics often attributed to the Palestinians themselves who have endured decades of displacement and occupation The artist father was a prominent politician activist Rashad is Showa who served as a mayor of Gaza in the 1970s and 80s before He was forcibly removed by the Israeli occupation And of course it is important to mention that there was a very important cultural center on Gaza named after Rashad Showa that was destroyed in the past few weeks, and I really hope it is rebuilt In fact this painting that you just saw Survived a direct hit when the Showa family house in Gaza was attacked by the Israeli forces in the 1980s despite all the horrors the painting evokes hope It depicts a flowering cactus in bloom in the spring season when the yellow edible fruit is produced You see the painting hanging in the family home. Layla Showa sent me this a few months before she passed away Arab women also depicted scenes of martyrdom Including Layla and Sayyed who's painting the nation the martyr from 1977 Directly references the death of Syrian charity worker Marie Rose Boulos at the hands of militiamen During the early years of the Lebanese civil war Miss Boulos had volunteered to look after death Mute and blind children from whom you can see here Mourning her passing while her co-workers and friends carried her body and notice how when women Depict these scenes they place women at the forefront and men who are there are placed in the background So women notice what we do to them. So they do the same back They push us back Okay So keeping in the theme of a martyrdom Palestinian artist Faten Tubasi Also referenced Palestinian martyrdom and the Lebanese civil war in her 1984 painting depicting martyrdom known as Heroic Act the actual name in Arabic is Amal Feth I don't know how to translate it which was created two years after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 Tubasi who studied at the Reppens Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in the early 1980s Portrays a mother looking over the laying body of her daughter that is draped in the Palestinian flag The graffiti in the background in case you don't need Arabic Includes phrases such as to Palestine and the steadfastness of Beirut And we will resist to the last drop of blood I'll tell you who this painting in a presents now It is said to reference The artist himself herself says the 1976 killing of Lena Nablusi Well, a lot of you who know Palestine will know this history a 17 year old daughter of a prominent Nablus family Who was chased and killed by an occupation soldier simply for carrying a Palestinian flag More recently leading Sudanese artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq created a painting titled blues for the six martyrs to reference the Sudanese protesters Who were pushed or killed by militiamen and then dumped into the blue Nile Many of whom were said to have concrete blocks tied to their feet According to one report in the Guardian. So these are individuals who are looking up at you From the river itself from the Nile itself very somber Arab women artists also depicted their country's leaders from simple portraits to political acts in 1970 Saudi pioneer artist Safiya bin Zagir depicted King Faisal who was a renowned modernizer and Reformer introducing for example public education for girls in in the Saudi high schools in 1973 King Faisal led an Arab oil embargo as a response to the US backing of Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria While leading Tunisian fine artists and the first native director of the school of fine art of Tunis Safiya Farhat captured the last known portrait of the anti-colonial political activist Farhat Hashad days before he was killed in 1952 by Laman Rouge a French terrorist organization operated by the French foreign intelligence One of my favorites Moroccan artist Malika Aghizney Depicts in the semi-abstract painting King Hassan the second leading the Green March of 1975 that saw 350,000 Moroccans advanced into the Western Sahara territory You can also note the use the use of Arabic calligraphy Invoking God's name as well as the red Moroccan flag featuring the lone star however No other leader has been depicted as often as Gamal Abdel Nasser by countless artists male and female from across the Arab world Can you guys see where the King of Morocco is in this work? So I point to you in this instance We see Tahiyeh Aleem showcasing Gamal Abdel Nasser on a boat dressed in upper Egyptian costume Reaching out to a Nubian man while holding a bundle of wheat, which is here a symbol of livelihood Ironically and despite the title of this painting the happiness of Nubia Abdel Nasser's policies would be detrimental to the people of Nuba In pursuit of his dream to construct the high dam in Aswan Nasser would force the relocation of dozens of Nubian villages While other Egyptian artists who depicted Gamal Abdel Nasser include Mariam Abdel Aleem will see a work by her very soon many women chose to depict their fellow women as protagonists and not simply victims especially in the wake of major conflicts in 1968 for example this painting by Syrian artist Maisoun al-Jaza'iri Women are shown to be carrying knives and swords While standing outside their homes in order to protect their families and themselves The date is relevant here as it has come one year after the 1967 defeat of the Arab armies at the hands of Israel and the occupation of the Golan Heights the Sinai Ghazza the West Bank and Jerusalem Earlier following the 1956 tripartite aggression Fatima Ararji who was the director of the Alexandria Faculty of Fine Arts depicted women alongside men carrying rifles at the advanced eastward so you see more women depicting women fighting back defending themselves not simply being you know Submissive or being weak, which I think is very very important when it comes to Art history the social dimension of women's struggles was never absent from Arab women artists work While the intimate moments of motherhood is a universal theme that That many Arab women artists chose to portray in Giflatouan's depiction of mothers in jail With their children is unlike many portraits In the mid 20th century in Egypt the very theme was revised and Revisited by other artists such as gas be a series prison children in 1959 both these artworks follow the amendments made to the Egyptian penal code Expanding the provisions under which women could be sent to prison While in Syria Lebanese artist the Ria Fakhouri depicted the 1958 to 1962 Syrian drought that heavily impacted the country's production and Export of wheat and barley the darkness of the background Emphasizes the sorrow and the critical condition of the mother with a child in her arms racism and Race is a constant theme in the work of artists of the Arab world in this 1973 painting by Palestinian artist Tamam al-akhal a laborer called the Suleiman from Jericho is depicted Jericho is home to one of the largest populations of Afro-Palestinians Many of whom are descendants of pilgrims who came to Palestine especially during the Ottoman period in a reflection of the harsh realities facing Modern artworks from the Arab world this portrait of Suleiman was damaged by a shrapnel during the during the Lebanese civil war you can you see it the shrapnel is Just above the forehead The American civil rights movement provided inspiration to Arab women artists to both show solidarity and inspiration To their own struggles both in Giflatoon and gas be a Siri depicted African-American women and of that era In if Raton's case it was a portrait of the revolutionary Marxist and feminist political activist Angela Davis the one on the right black and white by the way many of these works in black and white We don't have colored pictures of them. So we have to rely on these old photos Syrian artist lay on sale. We saw her work earlier Dark painting of a Vietnamese man laying on a bed of skulls and bones was an angry critique of the year's Long vicious American onslaught on the Southeast Asian country Vietnam Anika Linsen assistant professor of global modern art at UC Berkeley Notes that the the lying figure bears a slight resemblance to an African-American figure as well in 1965 The year this painting was made African-Americans accounted for nearly 25 percent of all combat deaths in Vietnam Going to Morocco Mariam Missians dignified depiction of African-American men Depict dressed in elegant Moroccan jellaba the traditional koftan Featuring hand-decorated embroidery known locally as a Sfifa was a repeated theme in her the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars were reflected in a number of paintings by leading women artists beginning with those from Iraq itself in 1991 Painted Gulf war Which depicts a woman standing hands lifted as though she is about to be crucified While arrows are fired at her and the relief and the relief of Apcalo one of the seven Sumerian sages figures at the temple of Ninurta at Nimrod the woman clad in white a color often associated with pureness virginity and innocence has her eyes closed as she is subjected to brutality and violence a Dozen years later Egypt's Mariam abdel aleem's fall of Baghdad Sees a swarm of crows the Sun upon the Iraqi capital as Injuries and deaths abound Amid the chaos families are separated and refugees are on the move abdel aleem's prophetic artwork foreshadows the destruction of Iraq that suffered for the next decade and a half From senseless violence that took the lives of 300,000 human beings So Adil atar a leading Iraqi artist based in London since 1976. By the way, did I show you the earlier slide? Yes, so now so Adil atar a leading Iraqi artist based in London since 1976 Depicts the destruction and fires engulfing what was known as the city of peace Following the American invasion of 2003. This painting is an impassioned homage to the irreversible loss and distress experienced by Baghdad inhabitants Now to peace Arab women artists also Tackled the theme of peace Even during the colonial era for instance Lebanese artist Blanche Ammoun was invited to present works at the Lebanese pavilion in the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair For the occasion of the New York World's Fair She created four large murals each depicting a peace agreement between the Phoenicians Lebanon and Neighboring civilization including the Egyptians and the Jews According to researcher maha Aziz Sultan's book lagh olibom Duman daf gansi a land dependence The Lebanese government had asked the artist Philippe Morani to oversee the Lebanese pavilion 1937 under the theme of Phoenician Salon Which is probably where she got the inspiration from as you can see here the Phoenicians are signing a peace agreement with the Egyptians or with the pharaohs Severe several years several decades later at the height of the Iraq Iran war Bahraini artist Balqis Fakhru Created a painting titled face to face showing Persian King Xerxes the first meeting with Babylonian King Hammurabi on the shore of the Gulf Behind them architectural monuments from both civilizations are featured Approximately half a million men died on both sides of the conflict over eight years of fighting with countless Injuries while the fate of many others remains unknown Is this an incredible piece? Coming to the end The Arab Spring provided many intellectuals and artists with opportunities to express themselves through creativity Amongst them is Yemeni artist Amna Nassiri who studied at the State Academy of Art in Moscow Before taking up a career both as an artist and instructor at the University of Sun'a Amna Nassiri who participated in the protests Depicts a sea of men and women Congregating in change square in the capital of Sun'a in the early days of the Yemeni spring of 2011 final slide the Taif Accord of 1989 Brought about the end of the 15 year-long Lebanese Civil War that resulted in a hundred and fifty thousand deaths and The immigration of over a million Lebanese citizens Recollecting that occasion artist Lor Ghurib Created this painting called reconstruction reconciliation withdrawal 1990 2005 which reflected the themes of the Taif Accords and the date in which the Syrian military finally withdrew its forces from Lebanon The artwork is filled with political slogans such as the phrase we demand freedom and the name of assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hareeri While the phrase tomorrow we play together Appears between both children from the early 20th century onwards Arab women artists Aspired to an equal footing with their male counterparts in many cases even beating them to major milestones Despite the many obstacles in their personal And professional career journeys Contrary to what some people may believe that Arab women artists were Complimentary to their male counterparts with some significant contributions here and there I hold that Arab art history cannot Simply cannot be written in full without considering the sizable contributions of women artists from the co-founding of major movements Like the like Iraq's Hurofia by Madiha Omar the Baghdad modern art groups Nazih Salim The crystallists Kamala Ibrahim of Sudan the Ausham movements by a Mahyiddin The Egypt contemporary art group Zaynab Abdul-Halim the statement against artistic racism by NGF Latoun Not to mention Salwar Al-Shuqir's seminal 1941 text Kaitha Fahim Al-Arabi Fanna Tasweer how the Arab understood visual art all these and more are a Testament to the pivotal role that Arab women artists played in the formation of the Arab art Canon What's more exciting for me personally is the process of learning the names of these women artists with the help of many Scholars and friends some of whom are in this very room with us today Ultimately, this is a Collaborative effort between scholars researchers collectors museums and one that will benefit us all. Thank you so much I mean, I could listen to Sultan forever I just want to say a huge. Thank you to Sultan for this really wonderful wonderful encyclopedic Knowledge of yours that you are now so generously sharing with us And I'm really happy that you have also accepted being affiliated with the Sawas Middle East Institute as a research associate You are inaugural research associate and the community at Sawas and all of us here will really benefit from your from your presence With us. Thank you so much and thank you all for coming tonight. I I Just want to briefly thank the small army of people behind the scenes who have helped make this event happen Everybody at Sawas from the advancement office to my own team especially Gloria and Imran From the Sawas Middle East Institute ackee who is the engine Thank you so much and all the volunteer student volunteers and everyone who made this event happen and We can now go have a drink We have a reception in the Senate House building So I'm afraid you'll have to brave the cold for a minute moving between one building and another you will be hopefully shown the way by the small army and Last but not least I want to say that we have also an advisory board for the Sawas Middle East Institute And we have some of them with us here tonight Please feel free to mingle with them at the reception in no particular order We have professor Matteo Legrenzi who's come all the way from Venice to be with us here today We have Dr. Venetia Porter who I'm sure a lot of you already know Dr. Radha Harithi who is a Sawas PhD And last but not least our very own professor Dina Motard. Thank you so much Thank you so much for being with us today and join us If you have the time as I said you'll be escorted. Thank you so much and this talk what by the way has been recorded So you can watch it again