Bidoun: arts and culture from the Middle East

[imomus]

Did I tell you that I was asked, earlier this year, to guest-present a guide to the Berlin Film Festival on Arabic cable network Al Jazeera? I'd have done it in a flash, despite the attendant risk of being bombed by Bush, but I happened to be in Japan at the time, bubbling in sento baths.

If the people from Bidoun asked me to contribute to their "platform for ideas and open forum for exchange, dialogue and opinions about arts and culture from the Middle East", I'd jump at it. It's my favourite new magazine. Bidoun was started in 2003 by Lisa Farjam. It's based in London, and seems to overlap, staffwise, with publications like Frieze and Cabinet. (Incidentally, I attended Cabinet magazine's interesting Ruination: a symposium on debris, decay and destruction on Monday night at The Kitchen.)

What initially appealed to me, browsing Issue 7 of Bidoun at Universal News on Broadway (under the watchful eye of the store's Arab owners), was the fashion spreads. Well, they were more August Sander-type social documentary shots than fashion shoots, to be honest. But Bidoun seemed to agree with me that construction workers (immigrant labourers in Dubai, as it happened) and eccentric old people were the most interestingly-dressed people around.

I also liked understated photos of hotels in Tehran, Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus and Khartoum. I liked the feeling that these people had a similar sensibility to me, and yet knew cities I've never been to, cities which rarely feature in the snake-eating-its-own-tail itineraries of the art and style press, a tribe who wear down to deep ruts the same old paths from Tokyo to Berlin to Paris to London to New York. All this plus articles on pirates, Iranian road movies, a piece by comedian Ali G, and an interview with Hisham Bharoocha of Black Dice. What's not to love, my bedouin bros?

Comments

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

I, for one, think that being in a place where primitive religious institutions keep a sandal on the throat of the common folk in favor of things like medical tech and information services is not a desirable thing.

A lot of people decry the "GIANT RELIGIOUS CONSPIRACY THAT CONTROLS BUSH AND OPPRESSES EVERYONE IN THE US, WHICH IS JUST LIKE NAZI GERMANY," but speak in hushed, reverent tones about faraway places where a change in religion means death (Iran, Egypt, etc.) and poor people are exploited and truly oppressed (India, most of Africa.)

Would you rather live in a country where drinking the water can kill you or would you rather be able to see it and come back to modern sanitation and hygiene? From your post, it seems like you'd be perfectly happy to play host to some vibrio species and live in a mud hut while the infection chews you up from the inside...


It doesn't make sense, mate.

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

I, for one, think that being in a place where primitive religious institutions keep a sandal on the throat of the common folk in favor of things like medical tech and information services is not a desirable thing.

What. You mean like America?