Art about maps and the Middle East, from Lebanese/Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum’s many maps, such as Bukhara (above), to Jordanian artist Oraib Toukan’s The New(er) Middle East and Saudi Abdulnasser Gharem’s No More Tears map.
Mona Hatoum – Mappings from Serpentine Gallery on Vimeo.
Hatoum approaches cartography and mapping in its perverse dimension of control, incorporating geopolitics and biopolitics: the relations of domination and exploitation among territories, as well as the control of life conditions and migrations…Hatoum dissects the infinite fragmentation of the Palestinian territory in installations such as Present Tense (1996), while reflecting on the postcolonial condition through the use of the Gall-Peters world map projection in works such as Bukhara (2008) or Map (1999), in which the artist destabilises the exhibition floor and the position of the audience.
For more on Hatoum talking about her work, see here.
Oraib Toukan’s interactive magnetic puzzle The New(er) Middle East plays on an infamous map detailing how ‘a better Middle East would look’, as suggested by an ex-US Army Lieutenant.
Artist Talk: Oraib Toukan at Delfina Foundation (June 2010) from Delfina Foundation on Vimeo.
Abdulnasser Gharem, No More Tears.
Arab Hyphen 
