Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council: !"!#$% Last name: Student Number: First name: My proposed research investigates Middle Eastern diasporic artists in North America who are creating political work surrounding Queer identity. This leading project will be the first to discuss Queer identity in relation to Contemporary political art being produced by the Middle Eastern diaspora in North America, and will nuance and contribute to the growing scholarship on Middle Eastern Contemporary Art and cultural studies. Although I intend to assess the work of several artists, I will focus on Egyptian artist Youssef Nabil as an archetypal case study for my research. Currently living in New York, Nabil’s art fosters a nuanced understanding of art production under a homophobic regime as he produced and exhibited in Egypt for the bulk of his career. Given the homoerotic underpinnings of his photographic portraits, I want to investigate the relationships between the artworks produced in Egypt and the United States, and assess any ideological shift in Nabil’s art production in coping with issues of censorship and exile.

Working with these sexual minorities, I aim to discover the relationship between cultural survival and political resistance through an artistic movement. The ongoing detainment and human rights atrocities plaguing Queer minorities in the Middle East makes this research highly relevant. With resistance and art production being a necessary facet of revolutionary protest and self-actualization, my research is relevant to the current aftermath of the Arab Spring and reformations that have changed the political status of sexual minorities. More importantly, my timely research emphasizes themes of migration, and the political artwork that is associated with the diasporic community, an identity category not focused on in traditional investigations of Middle Eastern Contemporary Art. Examining Youssef Nabil’s work through this interdisciplinary analysis allows Middle Eastern Contemporary Art to foster a more nuanced Canon highlighting geographical relevance in political art production given the different human rights afforded to the artists in North America versus that of their native country from which many are in exile.

Within a Queer theoretical and feminist framework, I will inform this research through the resistance and post-Orientalist theories of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, and W. J. T. Mitchell on decolonization; identity and diaspora theories including those of Stewart Hall, Arab diaspora specialist Nadine Naber, and Judith Butler’s recent writings on identity politics and human rights; and finally, foundational film and visual theory such as that of Laura Mulvey and Julia Kristeva. This interdisciplinary methodological approach will then be coupled with field research and interviews with living artists, as well as Human Rights Watch publications documenting the lived experiences of sexual minorities in the Middle East.

In terms of literature produced on Middle Eastern Contemporary Art, there has been no focus on the diaspora as an identity category, and no human rights framework has been taken to discuss themes of migration within political art production. The most focus given to transnationalism and the Middle Eastern diaspora can be seen in Safar: Voyage, an exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, thematically focusing on nomadic existence. This exhibition catalogue is

limited to nomadic aesthetics (Baird, 2013), and does not theorize diasporic identity in relation to political art production. The current literature on Youssef Nabil is limited to several exhibition catalogues and numerous magazine articles. While no critical and academic work has yet been dedicated to this internationally renowned artist, he has been interviewed by major figures in the field of visual arts, including Shirin Neshat (Amer, 2008), Marina Abramovic (Abromavic, 2013), Ghada Amer (Amer, 2008), Tracy Emin (Emin, 2007), and numerous art historians and critics. It is in these interviews that I am noticing a large gap in the discussion surrounding Youssef Nabil’s work. In all of the interviews conducted and published, thematic tensions of sexuality and censorship are briefly mentioned, but never investigated in any detail. Rather, existing interviews focus on Nabil’s relation to Egyptian Cinema, glamour photography, and his personal connection to the models in his photographs (Amirsadeighi, 2009; Azimi, 2004; Bardouil, 2010; Eigner, 2010; Karnouk, 2005; Marien, 2012; Porter, 2006). While my critical research on Nabil is timely and cutting edge, it is here that my interview with Youssef Nabil will have more of a human rights focus than those previously published, giving a greater understanding to his work as a political artist, and creating a framework of resistance when discussing his homoerotic portraits and intimate self-portraits.

Ming Tiampo, whose primary focus is that of post-war Japanese art, specializing in theories of the nation and post-colonial theory, will direct this project. The classes I am taking at Carleton University will also contribute to my research by further developing an interdisciplinary approach to my multi-faceted research. Building on my Undergraduate degree in studio art, I come with the background of strong classes in contemporary art theory and globalization, post-colonial-issues and feminist and queer studies.

As a Queer Egyptian-Canadian male myself, I see the importance of art’s dialogical potential to open, foster and make accessible the knowledge surrounding marginalized subjects. Coming to terms with my own subject position, a queer diasporic person of colour in exile, was a conflicting task, caught between a stringent cultural practice and being socialized in a largely Eurocentric environment. This project will not only advance research by introducing alternate artistic movements within the Art Historical Canon, but will also introduce an interdisciplinary theorization to Middle Eastern Contemporary Art that will help better understand the human rights issues surrounding sexual identity and resistance art production.