BEACONS
BUILDING THE DISCOURSE THAT DIDN’ T EXIST
One of Darat al Funun’ s most consequential contributions has been less visible than its exhibitions: the sustained effort to build critical discourse around Arab art precisely when very little existed. The PhD Fellowship program supports researchers undertaking serious scholarly work on modern and contemporary Arab art, and the Foundation’ s publications extend that same commitment to building bodies of reference and knowledge production.
Adnan Yahya. Human Rights, 2006.
Oil on wood.
The Khalid Shoman Collection, stewarding works by over 140 Arab artists across generations, is understood and activated in the same spirit— as much a research body as an artistic one. Exhibitions are one of the primary ways it is kept active; often generating encounters between collection works, visiting works, and newly commissioned pieces that open meanings difficult to anticipate in advance. Adnan Yahya’ s Human Rights, for example, made in 2006 in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, the war on Lebanon, and the Second Intifada, now hangs in In That Same Hour with renewed urgency— opening vital questions about what constitutes the“ human” and“ rights” within colonial constructs. The collection is also accompanied by an archive currently undergoing a major digitization project, a process that continually opens new pathways into the works: through letters exchanged with artists, installation photographs, or notes that completely reframe how a work is read. Researchers, fellows, and visiting scholars are vital to that process— working closely with the archive while also bringing their own questions into conversation with it.
24 MATAHEF ISSUE 03