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ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Welcome to This Being Human. I’m your host Abdul-Rehman Malik. On this podcast, I talk to extraordinary people from all over the world whose life, ideas and art are shaped by Muslim culture.

WAEL SHAWKY:
I don’t believe in history that much, but I love it. In the end, I don’t care really if this really happened or not. The issue is that it became part of the human belief.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

A running theme in Wael Shawky’s work is how history is shaped by the people who tell it – that we choose to interpret the past in a way that suits us at the moment.

 

Much of his work involves revisiting historical events and retelling them, playing with that line between history and myth.

 

The work takes many forms: sculpture, video, paintings… but one of the things that’s so immediately striking is his use of puppetry. He makes these epic videos, populated with haunting marionettes.

 

His work spans cultures and continents. Cabaret Crusades tells the story of the Crusades from an Arab perspective. More recently, his video I Am Hymns of the New Temple, set in Pompeii, explores creation myths in the town that was famously destroyed by a volcanic eruption 2000 years ago.

 

Wael’s work has been shown around the world and has won awards including the Sharjah Biennial Prize, the Grand Prize for the Alexandria Biennial and Louis Vuitton’s Award for the Filmic Oeuvre.

 

Wael Shawky joined me recently on a call from his studio in Alexandria, Egypt.

 

He was bursting with energy, ideas, stories… and some nerves.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Very tense. Very tense. Yes, I have. I’m preparing for Venice Biennial. So this is very tough at the same time, the political situation is a disaster, as we can see. And it’s really you cannot avoid it every day.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
You’ve been in some of the most influential artistic spaces in the world. You know, your work, your process, your method has been celebrated, has been highlighted as something so singularly unique. And you walk into these spaces as Egyptian, as a muslim, as an Arab, as someone who is between cultures. I mean, how do you see yourself in those spaces? And how much does the burden of your multiple identities weigh on not only your work, but how you represent yourself and your work in these incredible international spaces?

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yeah, that’s really interesting because also. The issue that. Okay, most of the countries that we came from as an Arab Muslim and all this, okay, most of this, we know that we are suffering lack of democracy. We are suffering lack of human rights and free speech, everything. So the expectation that with all these platforms that I am getting invited to in Europe and American all over the world, these are the platforms that will host all these different uh, that is reality. And in the culture, I think we are protected in the cultural field, we are protected. So we usually don’t really experience this tense racism. At least it doesn’t, it’s not that clear. Maybe it’s very subtle. I don’t know. But I’m suffering more to even to have a voice here in my country than in general. But as long as it’s under the umbrella of, of culture.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
That provides a level of kind of freedom.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course. It’s clear that we are still very, very lucky that we are in this area. We work in this area and still very lucky.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
When people look at your work, Wael, I’ve often read, you know, in artistic statements about your work, that you are a storyteller who works at the intersections of so many disciplines, and yet you are also deeply engaged with history. But you don’t just retell history, you, in a way – I’m gonna use the terms that I know from being a child of the hip hop generation — You remix history. You make it flow in all kinds of new, fantastical, compelling and unusual ways. Where did it start? Where did this vision that you had of delving into the past and telling it in some ways, like no one else does?

WAEL SHAWKY: 
Thank you. Well, I mean, in the end, I think a big, big part of my fascination with this history is my childhood in Saudi Arabia. I lived in Mecca, which is of course the…

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
That’s incredible.

WAEL SHAWKY:
…the place or the hub for everyone. And it’s in fact, it was a very cosmopolitan place in a very I mean, okay, very different way. When we describe cosmopolitan, maybe today, it’s tons of tribes that are coming from Africa that long time ago, that ended up staying in Mecca, didn’t leave after pilgrimage and so on. And tons of illegal people who lived some here and here. I don’t think the situation exists today, by the way, but back then everything exists. At the same time, the society itself is very tribal and very rigid, very strong. In my school, half of the class are Yemenis and the rest are Saudi. So yeah, so how to mix between this situation. And also for me personally, I was a stranger. Though many Egyptians, of course, coming to leave to stay in Saudi. But of course, I am always considered the Egyptian. But in any case, the idea that I’m coming, of course, from Egypt, so this is already the background of this. The people that are much more educated, well educated, most of the teachers and all of this that are in Saudi are coming from Egypt. At the same time, it’s an agricultural society. And the other side is very dry, tribal, bedouin society. So this mix adding on this, the mix of this modernity, that it’s coming from America. And I think I always connect everything to this moment honestly, to this moment of childhood. The idea of this Bedouin that perfect and basically sometimes he is riding a donkey and he has the Cadillac in front of his place. This mix is very fascinating to me.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
I love the idea that the way that you saw the world was as things mixing because in fact your artistic practice is exactly that, isn’t it? You work in all kinds of mediums. You know and they all mix together. It’s quite remarkable, actually. It’s painting and wood sculpture and film. And of course, one of the things that is so powerful, compelling and also surprising about your work is the use of marionettes. And the marionettes are so incredibly beautiful and yet also sort of otherworldly. You have to tell me, how did you become interested in marionettes and why in some ways have they become such an important part of your artistic practice in your work?

WAEL SHAWKY:
I think I was just, I think, very lucky with this idea of the marionettes. I believe it started with reading the book or by Amin Maalouf, Crusades Through Arab Eyes. I was starting just to make the research in the beginning, but when it came to this book, the book is more like a guide for me. I didn’t use it for the script. I used the book to have, let’s say, the choreography of the whole series, meaning that, let’s say, to go from Aleppo to Damascus, then to Jerusalem then, and so on. That’s why I always feel that I’m more like a translator. I translate the topic into a new readable form, which is, this is how I feel, that it needs to be translated to the the marionettes. Well, the marionettes, of course, it was developed according to the topic. So when we went to the last chapter, which is the third chapter of Cabaret Crusades, the marionettes, I was just thinking, how can I make the marionettes? So I found that the forth crusades, which is really for me the most important, which is the last one for me, it’s not the eighth one, but the fourth, was really managed by the Venetians. So I thought this is the key. So we thought about this, okay, maybe if it’s possible to make the marionettes out of the Murano glass, we are connecting this history. And it worked. It was extremely not possible for anyone to do it even. But in the end, it was it happened and it took me maybe one year to to to create these marionettes with the mechanism and moving eyes and mouth. But it happened. And then something very interesting also was was part of this, which is the book ummm… Jose Saramago. Yes. Jose Saramago. The Gospel according to Jesus Christ, where part of this book was describing Jesus Christ speaking to God and asking God, why are we making that fragile as human being? Why this human mind is present inside a body that with one accident ends? Why we’re not made out of light? Why this body is that fragile? So this idea always was part of my mind about this book, Jose Saramago. And so, okay, so that means the fragility of the glass when you see all this story made out of the glass and the marionettes and the Venetia. So that combination, let’s say, is making the film.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
The use of the Venetian glass is stunning, Wael.  And the fact that these puppets move and they interact and you’re telling stories through it actually kind of takes us into history but out of history at the same time. And I feel like you do that a lot. You take us into history and then you take us out of it. And in a way, the title that you gave to the series, Cabaret Crusades, seems to sort of represent that, right? We’re both witnesses to history and we’re also sort of interpreters of it, isn’t it?

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yes, Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The title was also very important when I started this, I also feel that it was important to present my point of view about history, that, of course, I don’t believe in history that much, but I love it. Okay. I know I deal with it as human creation. And usually it’s the idea of cabaret is like it’s connected to entertainment, connected to, yes, people are sitting, the audience in one place and the history is played in one other place. And also the idea of the word cabaret also as the gathering for people to speak about politics. So all of this, I believe, also is connecting to the word Cabaret Crusades.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
You say that you don’t believe in history, Wael. Explain, explain that to me. Talk me through what that means.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yeah, of course. I mean, for the moment, for example, for Venice, I’m trying to make something very much more minimal, let’s say, for Venice. But speaks about the incident in in, okay it’s a it’s the date of 1882, which is the date of the British occupation of Egypt, for example. But when you read the history, we have the history that we have at school, of course, which is what we have. It’s not really, they didn’t change it that much, but in every part there is always doubt. Is this person really said that or not? And in the end, I don’t care really if this really happened or not. The issue is that it became part of the human belief around it. It’s like maybe that it never happened, but they really believe it now.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
It sort of says something about the power of the story, right, more than the power of history. The story is the thing that drives us, not necessarily the historical fact. Because this is a theme that emerges in your work, that history isn’t fixed, but rather something that is, as you just described, malleable and and multiple. It’s like multiple truths and realities existing at the same time.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yes. Yes, of course. Even when? Okay. When I started, for example, Cabaret Crusades, Cabaret Crusades is not the first thing that I work with the history before, but Cabaret Crusades was really, of course, more mature for me to deal with this topic. But when I started, this was also the starting of the revolution in Egypt. Well, then we call it Revolution or the Arab Spring or whatever. Something. That failed completely, unfortunately. So this is a clear example for something. We all lived in the streets of Egypt. We had hope and we made everything and in less than one year, they managed to change all the truth. Even for people who lived the event, within one year. So when we talk about a history that’s going back to more than a thousand years ago, it’s very interesting when people really believe that this is exactly what happened. Nice, but I don’t know how, really. I have no idea.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Do you think anyone is reliable?

WAEL SHAWKY:
[laughs]

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
I mean, if narrators are ultimately telling stories and interpretations of what is happening around them, do you think do you think anyone is actually reliable?

WAEL SHAWKY:
Well, I mean, of course. I mean, but it’s… everything is relevant, I don’t know. I mean in the end’s difficult to say that. I mean, I’m coming from a religious background and I do have sort of belief in good and bad. And I do have this type of belief and brought up this way.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
It’s sort of in our DNA, isn’t it?

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yes, exactly. I mean, part of it, because of my study in Mecca, but also other part because of my personality. It happened this way. So I do have belief in this. But in the end, it’s how can we… Yeah, let’s say, how can you translate this into, into artwork? This is another thing.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
One of your most recent films, which uses marionettes, again, is about the Italian city of Pompeii. And the project is called I Am Hymns of the New Temple. Now, Pompeii is of course, now a bustling and vibrant city in Italy that was once buried during a volcanic eruption, you know, several thousand years ago. Why did this story capture your imagination and how did you tell the story of Pompeii 2000 years later?

WAEL SHAWKY:
It was also one of the most beautiful experiences I had. So…. it came, of course, with different negotiations. I think it was in the beginning an invitation for me to make a proposal for something. And then I said in the end I said, okay, I would love to do a project, but a film. And then I said, I don’t want to make a film about Pompeii at all, but Pompeii will be the scenography, the backdrop for the film. So what is the film? The film is about the human creation, but from the Greek mythology point of view, and the first time I read Greek mythology, I was never interested before in Greek mythology, it’s not really my area. But this time I said, we do something with this new… I was really fascinated by something completely different. When I started to read and find the links between what’s happening inside the Greek mythology, from what is, what happened. How did this world, constructed from nothingness, from chaos, until it became what we have not today, but let’s say 2000 years ago. And you see the links between these stories inside and Islam and Christianity and Judaism and all of these different parallel stories. Everything has a link in what we live today. I was also trying to make something more with human beings, but marionettes at the same time. So it becomes more like a, it’s a human but not complete yet. The face doesn’t have any expression. It’s just one expression. And it’s just also moving itself, which is something I always loved in the previous films. Also when I was working with kids or marionettes, and this time in Pompeii, it was more like masks. Everything is covered where you don’t see when you don’t really have drama at all.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Right.

WAEL SHAWKY:
It’s like really a way to erase drama from everything and just to try to to look at the topic as you’re seeing that the topic and the story itself is becoming the most important. And of course, everything is becoming like one thing. Music, mask, everything is one thing. Nothing is complimentary. It’s just like the whole thing. Drama. And this time in for Venice Biennial, I decided to make it a bit different and I called the film Drama. So I think I’m using the opposite. Let’s try. I don’t know if it will work.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Wael’s work is not just about history and narrative. It’s also about place. It speaks to its surroundings in a way that it often wouldn’t make sense, or in some cases, wouldn’t even be possible in a different location.

 

Nowhere is this truer than with Desert X. This was a project where multiple artists were invited to make installations in the Al-ula Desert in Saudi Arabia.

 

Central to Wael’s piece is a projection of prized black camels – in negative colours – pointing skywards, against the dunes. It’s unusual and it’s stunning.

WAEL SHAWKY:
It was also something very, very minimal. I’m always like, I like to say minimal because this is not part of my work, but when I make it, I’m so proud.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Wael Shawky is by nature a maximalist. So when you are minimalist it’s like a special day. It’s like a special occasion. I totally get that.

WAEL SHAWKY:
So. It’s okay. I also that was another project somewhere I was invited to to try to make some. Anyway, I was always also because of my background about this gulf and nomad society and all of this, I always, that was always part of my search and interest. Um. I went to Abu Dhabi. I can’t remember the date, really. Um, I believe that was maybe more than ten years ago or something, I went to Abu Dhabi and I made a film of herds of black camels. These black camels are extremely expensive. And people like greedy. Some sheikhs in it, not only in Abu Dhabi, but in United Arab Emirates and in Saudi, in the Gulf in general, the… This is like wealth. One camel can be worth up to maybe $1 million or something.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Wow.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Not any camel. Certain camels, black camels are rare, and they’re, like, incredibly beautiful. And sometimes they just have these herds just walking around like this, and they film it. So I decided just to film the camels as like a different form of beauty and wealth. And it has many layers in it, just the camels by itself. Anyway, these black camels particularly are coming originally from Saudi. They, let’s say they import, they import these camels from Saudi and then they yeah, they grow in United Arab Emirates and it becomes like a sort of like different types of showing wealth. When I went to Saudi, I decided to take this film and project it on the mountain very, very large scale and then invert the image. But in any case, it just like it was, again, a way to try to bring back this homage of the the camels that came originally from Saudi to Abu Dhabi, to bring them back into, into the mountain of Saudi and Al-Ula.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
You’ve brought the Bedouin nomadic caravan history of those deserts back to the desert through images.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s something really there are some if you there are some TV channels for example in in United Arab Emirates just like you look at the camels walking in the desert. That’s it. And there are sometimes you just sometimes this Bedouin music on it and you just look at this. It’s interesting to see that.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
That’s fascinating. But but also like people want to connect to it’s something that is in their, I guess their in their kind of historical spiritual DNA and soul that this connects the back to the things that are essential, especially when you think about the Gulf as being a place that’s now shiny and built up and uber modern. And it could be, you know it’s Abu Dhabi or Dubai or wherever, but it could be anywhere in a way. It’s interesting how people return to the things that really speak to them, define them.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Sure. Sure.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Tell their story. Wael, this been such a pleasure. Just. Just before we sort of wrap up, I, I have to say that I, You know, I… I feel so privileged to be able to speak to people like you and and I find it so incredibly heartening and inspirational. And as I as I hear you speak, there’s in your voice, there’s this there’s two things I feel. There’s an incredible passion to what you do and an energy, but also a sense of a kind of desire to explore and to find things and connections that haven’t been found before, a kind of an urgency in your voice and in the way you describe your work. What is going on in Wael Shawky’s soul that is driving both passion and urgency?

WAEL SHAWKY:
Well, I Yes, it is true, I’m fascinated by, I don’t know, I mean, part of Cabaret Crusades, for example, when we were making, I was trying to commit to build, which is this is the second part for example, when I was building the marinades out of the ceramic, I was invited to make this in in a city in in France called Aubagne, close to Marseilles. Well, okay. Again, with the research, I found that this city has history in making something called santons. Santons is a figurine like this size that they put inside the churches that tells the Nativity stories of Mary and, you know, this whole stories. So it was fascinating. Okay, let’s try to work with these artisans. Working with artisans for me is extremely important. If I find good artisans that they are really connected to history and connected to certain type of folklore or to certain type of part of the history. So part of this history, which is pure European Christian history when if you can make them build marionettes instead of this figurine in ceramic that tells the story of the Crusades. But from the Arab point of view, like shifting everything with this traditional Christian European method. Artisans. I believe you can reach something that’s always different. Like with this mixing. Yeah, the passion comes from, of course, from connecting things together. So it’s a translation.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Wael, I wonder if you would tell me about a joy, a joy or a meanness that came to you as an unexpected visitor.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Very quickly. Very quickly. I was in Istanbul. Okay, Very fascinated by Sufism. I was reading a lot in Sufism during this time in Istanbul. That was a long time ago during my work, The Cave. That was 2004. And during this time, a lot of reading in Sufism, of course, main thing was Jalaluddin Rumi. And I started to believe really that of the idea to be uh, they call it what like receptors, like that you don’t take actions basically. That you just follow the signs. When I finished, it was on seven months in Istanbul. I decided to go visit a place called Diyarbakir in Turkey. I went to the airport. I was just waiting for the flight and waiting inside the gate and then the guy told me that I missed the flight. Okay, believing in the signs, I said, okay, that’s a sign. doesn’t I don’t have to go. I went back to the place and then I asked the woman what is the first flight to anywhere in Turkey? And she told me about this place. I went to this other place and the first day in the morning I went and I said, okay, guys, where am I? What is this? What is happening? What is the most famous thing here? They said, it’s the shrine of Jalaluddin Rumi.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
That is so beautiful, Wael. We end up at the places where we need to be. I am so privileged to have been in conversation with you on This Being Human. Thank you, Wael Shawky, for being with us.

WAEL SHAWKY:
Thank you so much.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Thank you for listening to This Being Human. We will include links to some of Wael Shawky’s work in the show notes.

This Being Human is produced by Antica Productions in partnership with TVO. Our Senior Producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Emily Morantz. Our executive producers are Laura Regehr and Stuart Coxe.

Mixing and sound design by Phil Wilson. Our associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Original music by Boombox Sound.

 

Shaghayegh [Sha-ruh-yier] Tajvidi is TVO’s Managing Editor of Digital Video and Podcasts. Laurie Few is the executive for digital at TVO.

 

This Being Human is generously supported by the Aga Khan Museum. Through the arts, the Aga Khan Museum sparks wonder, curiosity, and understanding of Muslim cultures and their connection with other cultures.

 

The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.