Interpretations of gender identity Contemporary artists are exploring intersections between sexuality, gender expression, and cultural identities through their art, "queer curation" of exhibitions, and performances. Contemporary artists like
Yasmine K. Kasem and
Chaza Charafeddine have explored articulations of non-normative gender expression in historical
Islamic art, particularly through
al Buraq, the genderless human-headed flying steed that carried the Islamic prophet
Muhammad on his night journey. Kasem's
Sweat Until I am Soaked (2022), a sculpture composed of three colorful
Buraqs with her own face attached to them, serves as a commentary on finding space for her own identity as a queer Muslim to exist in the open. In Charafeddine's works, the head of
al Buraq is always a portrait of a feminine individual. By incorporating various gendered interpretations of
al Buraq into her pieces, Charafeddine reinforces the idea of the liminal creature as a symbol of "in-betweenness" Queer curation is a practice that "places queerness at the centre of its curatorial framework" with the aim of rejecting the heteronormative status quo of Western curatorial tradition. He disrupts preconceived notions of the treatment of gender norms and identity expression in 1950s-1970s South Lebanon. Although the creation of these images at the time may not fully reflect cultural attitudes towards queer individuals, their existence pushes back against the idea that queerness in the Arab world is a much more recent phenomenon.
Bassem Feghali, a popular Lebanese comedian in the 1990´s and 2000´s, is considered to be a trailblazer in the Arab drag scene with his female
celebrity impersonations. Because of the importance of performance and extravagance in Lebanese culture, Feghali was met with praise across generations. Queer friendly bars that host
drag shows and other queer events are largely considered the Lebanese queer community's safe space. The up-and-coming Lebanese drag scene gives queer performance artists a safer and more legitimate place to be able to explore intersections between their Arab and queer identities through drag performance. Palestinian drag artists used performance spaces as a way to resist
Zionist "exotification" of Palestinian bodies and condemn Palestinian society's perception of people existing outside of a conservative conception of the gender binary.
Sexuality and intimacy This theme describes the ways in which artists are exploring and representing questions of queer intimacy and sexuality. How artists across the region choose to represent these themes is vast and diverse. Some examples include photography of the human body that frames individuals outside of a heteronormative lens, and scenes of
homo-social couplings.
Youssef Nabil's work including
What Have We Done Wrong, Cairo, 1993 and
Malik Sleeping, Paris 2005 are only two notable examples of this focus on the body in photography. Representations of intimacy and sexuality can also expand to works that do not directly represent the human body. Qias Assali's
I Only Read About Myself on Bathroom Walls portrays a queer intimacy through the photographing of written statements and interactions on bathroom stalls. Here the intimacy is represented not through physical touch but rather through temporal proximity, a conversation that happens across time.
Diaspora Some artists living and working in the diaspora engage with the diaspora in dialogue with queerness in their works. For example,
Youssef Nabil's photos
Not Afraid to Love, Paris, 2005 and
What Have We Done Wrong, Cairo, 1993 both feature similar compositions: two men resting in an interior domestic space yet the position of the figures in each piece coupled with the title that include location (Paris and Cairo) illustrate diaspora as having a tangible effect on local sexuality scripts. == List of Queer artists of the Middle East and North Africa ==