<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Thanks, Sean, for this post. For anyone unfamiliar with Gharam’s practice, his website is <a href="https://abdulnassergharem.com/" class="">https://abdulnassergharem.com</a>.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Sean, could you tell us more about how artists like Gharam navigate various state and social restrictions to play a role in defining and redefining Saudi Arabia? I was struck by the use of stamps and concrete blocks.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Is the work received as Saudi, Arab, or Middle Eastern?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It would also be great to hear about telfaz11, which uses YouTube to circumvent restrictions placed on television.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">
<div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Feb 3, 2020, at 19:55, Sean Foley <<a href="mailto:foleymtsu@gmail.com" class="">foleymtsu@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="gmail-" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div class="gmail-"><div class="gmail-" style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">Over the last two decades, Saudi Arabia has witnessed a cultural renaissance in film, literature, online media, stand-up comedy, and the visual arts. On multiple occasions, Abdulnasser Gharem, one of the country’s foremost artists, has argued that he and his colleagues fill a critical social role, telling the<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em class="gmail-">New York Times</em><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>in 2016: “That is your role as an artist, to bring out the option that the politician can’t say and that the religious man can’t say… You bring out the solutions that people can’t say.” Three years later in an interview with Spain’s<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em class="gmail-">El Pais</em>, he stressed that art is “a form of soft power” through which you “can change people’s behavior.” “People,” he added “need to listen to the artist.” Is Gharem right? What role could he and other artists like him play in a country in which an absolute monarchy and clerics have long wielded enormous power? What could Gharem and artists tell us about the Kingdom in 2020? </div></div></blockquote></div>
_______________________________________________<br class="">empyre forum<br class=""><a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" class="">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br class=""><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__empyre.library.cornell.edu&d=DwICAg&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=qcTmJUObF8XYm8yI7VhbJrDrNIg8UQyscq1gBMIIbxk&m=zbsP4PC7przlC4gX2qNJDW4FORebB5tm43XL0M5P1wY&s=gG6uKPlUobeOHB9z4L_qX7g8QkLnx6udZUaOI4OzTkA&e=" class="">https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__empyre.library.cornell.edu&d=DwICAg&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=qcTmJUObF8XYm8yI7VhbJrDrNIg8UQyscq1gBMIIbxk&m=zbsP4PC7przlC4gX2qNJDW4FORebB5tm43XL0M5P1wY&s=gG6uKPlUobeOHB9z4L_qX7g8QkLnx6udZUaOI4OzTkA&e=</a> </div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>