Modernism, Feminism and Science Fiction: Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes by Marwa Arsanios

Nadine Atallah (1, 2)

1 InVisu - L'information visuelle et textuelle en histoire de l'art : nouveaux terrains, corpus, outils
2 UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes is an artist book published in 2012 by Lebanese contemporary artist Marwa Arsanios, included in her Al-Hilal project (2011-ongoing). This project is based on an examination of the Egyptian cultural magazine Al-Hilal, and more particularly of two issues dating back to Nasser's presidency. These praised Nasser's ideology of Arab socialism and nationalism by highlighting technological and scientific innovations , social progress and women's emancipation. More than half a century later, after the failure of Nasser's policy and ideology, Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes analyses the rhetoric of modernism and its promises in the magazine. It takes a particular interest in the expression of Egypt's dream of space conquest, and in the representation of women, and more particularly of female Algerian freedom fighters. By re-engaging and manipulating Al-Hilal's textual and visual language, Arsanios plays with a multi-plicity of temporal layers and uses the prospective potentialities of science fiction to re-imagine the modernist ideals and assert the importance of a utopian thought for the present. This article invokes Svetlana Boym's concepts of off-modernism and nostalgia to consider Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes as a feminist historiographical critique of modernism as conveyed by Al-Hilal.

Mots clés: Marwa Arsanios; contemporary art; modern Egypt; off-modernism; Al-Hilal

Domaines: Art et histoire de l'art; Architecture, aménagement de l'espace; Histoire; Etudes sur le genre; Héritage culturel et muséologie

Nadine Atallah. Modernism, Feminism and Science Fiction: Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes by Marwa Arsanios. Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 2016, ⟨10.1515/asia-2016-0030⟩. ⟨halshs-02177746⟩