The Lands Within Me: Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Given current world conditions, this catalogue of an exhibition of works
by Arab-Canadian artists is both timely and important. Both the
exhibition and the catalogue focus on the universality of art and
artistic creation.

Part 1 of the catalogue includes six incisive pieces by a playwright,
two photographers, two university professors, and a novelist, each with
a distinct perspective on the uniqueness of the Arab experience both in
Canada and abroad. Part 2 features the visual reproductions of the works
in the exhibition, including ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, calligraphy,
painting, photography, installation, and video. Although now based in
Canada, the artists originally came from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq,
Palestine, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Tunisia. A brief
biography is included for each artist. There are two appendixes—one an
excerpt from Camille Zakharia’s, Lebanon-Canada, Via Bahrain (a
photo-collage and gouache on paper mounted on triangular wooden
columns), and the other a transcript from a recording of Gloria
Sorge’s poignant, “I Think of My Mother,” another example of the
universality of art.

The artwork entries in the catalogue are photographed to their best
advantage so that an appreciation of them can be readily formed. Equally
revealing are the excerpts from transcripts, interviews, and personal
statements that accompany the artists’ photographs. Laila Binbrek, for
example, reveals, “I find the facade I choose to wear depends upon the
society I mingle in.” Abd Hanafi declares, “My work is full of
people so that I may feel surrounded by them, and also because they
enrich the scene.” And Liliane Karnouk admits that “I chose to
design furniture because I could not find contemporary items that linked
my Islamic carpet and my computer table.”

Beautifully constructed and intriguingly designed, the catalogue is a
treasure to be studied and revisited.