The Art of the Qatar Blockade

It has been a year since Qatar was blockaded by three of her Gulf neighbors. Since the commencement of the blockade, Qatari national solidarity has been expressed through art, beginning with Ahmed bin Majed Almaadheed's Tamim Al Majd: a monochrome painting of Qatar's Emir, who is presented youthful, fearless and, quite exceptionally, without traditional Arab attire. 

One year on, artists Mubarak Al-Thani and Ghada Al-Khater's exhibition, Remember When..., captures the defiant Qatari spirit through satire and generous splashes of color. As a member of a generation that routinely communicates via emoji-strings, the GCC Crisis Emoji Chronicle was an easy favorite of mine. The piece captures the initial incredulity, defiance and subsequent response to the blockade. 

Sharper, however, is Mubarak Al Thani's June 5th -1 Year Later. A lightening bolt from Al Wajba (the site of a 19th century Qatari battle with the Ottomans, and the name given to one of the Emir's principal palaces) strikes Al Auja (again a palatial reference - this time to the home of the Saudi monarch). Spewing from Al Auja, we see vice, in the form of gambling, and pestilence. Al-Thani, a political scientist by training and self-taught artist conveys through angles and sharp colors, local anger against the blockading powers who are seen as having been responsible for their fair share of political and other misdeeds. The chaos of Al Auja contrasts with the order of the Doha skyline, which is in turn, flanked by a graph representing Qatar's economic progress. This is undoubtedly an allusion to the view that the blockade was significantly motivated by envy of Qatar's economic influence on the world stage.

Beyond this exhibit at the W Hotel's Art29 space, art inspired by the emotions of the blockade has sprung up in other spaces. At The Gate Mall, an unused retail space has been converted into the eerie setting for Fatma Alshebani's conceptual and interactive piece, The Mother. Surrounded by garish red light, a tree of barbed wire stands lonely. However, visitors to the exhibit can interact with the barbed wire tree, adding leaves to its branches, allowing to symbolically grow and flourish. The plastic leaves can be personalized - many have names on them: some no doubt of visitors to the exhibit. Many names, however, are those of family members separated by the blockade; our leaves had the names of my parents, so close but yet so far in Bahrain.

It is incredibly exciting to see artists in Qatar convey political commentary through art. Whilst the content invariably portrays the country in a favorable light, the connection between art and political expression in a country perhaps less accustomed to it, ought to be encouraged.

Remember When... by Mubarak Al-Thani and Ghada Al-Khater is on display until September 4, 2018 at Art29, The W Hotel, Doha

The Mother by Fatma Alshebani is currently on view at The Gate Mall, Doha.

Many thanks to Jörg Matthias Determann for assisting with Arabic translations and contributing his thoughts to this commentary.