Celebrating Artists Working for Peace

Since we have just marked the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are featuring three artists this month who are exploring issues of war and peace.

Although male voices dominate the mass media war coverage, there is a long and distinguished international tradition of women who have used their art to witness, expose, and protest wars. For example, Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for work that tells the story of World War II in powerful and subversive ways; the Vietnam era in the United States can hardly be remembered without the voice of Joan Baez as a soundtrack; and Deepa Mehta has created award-winning films about the suffering wrought by the partition of India.

Women Artist-Activists Today

Over the past two years, prominent women artists and writers have been visible as activists in new movements for peace. Alice Walker, Maxine Hong Kingston, the Dixie Chicks, Arundhati Roy, and many others have been outspoken proponents of peaceful alternatives to war.

Moreover, around the globe, women are writing plays, poems and novels; painting pictures; making films and art of all kinds that explores the origins of armed conflict, examines its impact, and imagines other pathways to the resolution of differences. Some women are using their art to comment specifically on wars being fought by their home countries and others are documenting the military experience and daily life in a time of war.

Telling Women’s Stories of War and Imagining Alternatives

In this newsletter, we interview three women who are using their art to bring home the heart-break of war and to imagine alternatives.  Seema Sueko is a playwright who has explored the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in her own work, and whose company, Mo’olelo Performing Arts, plans this fall to stage A Piece of My Heart, Shirley Lauro’s poignant play about women who served in Vietnam. Octavia McBride-Ahebee writes poems about the civil wars and conflicts in Africa. Haifa Bint-Kadi is a Palestinian-American mosaic artist who brings Muslim and Jewish women together to create public mosaics. To learn more about any of these artists, just search the WomenArts Network on her name.

We have also compiled a list of other Artists Groups Working for Peace>>

Seema Sueko: Sing Your Story Loud & Clear

Sarah Browning: Has being a woman had an impact on your work on themes of war and peace?

Seema Sueko: I’m sure that all of my cultural identities filter and influence how I approach my art, whether it’s my identity as woman, or Muslim, or mixed-race, or actor, or San Diegan. As I create new theatre works that are based on community interviews, because I am a woman, I am given access into new communities through other women, and consequently, I am able to learn and witness the effects of war and peace at a personal and intimate level.

Specifically, my play, remains, was based on my interviews and experiences in Israel-Palestine. My female identity gave me immediate access to Palestinian and Israeli women’s organizations, and a large amount of my play is based on some of the women I met through those connections. Further, rather than focus on the male-dominated policy-making entities, my play focused on the bridges and obstacles the women face in peacemaking, and the important work they are doing to create change in their societies.

Sarah Browning: What role do you see for the arts in a time of war? Does war change your art making process or the art itself?

Sueko: I see the theatre as our modern-day town halls, churches, mosques, synagogues or temples. It’s the place where our communities can gather and experience diverse stories, voices, and viewpoints, and it’s the place for community dialogue. I don’t think any of that changes in the time of war. Perhaps it just becomes all the more vital that our art creates the space for exploration, discussion, fostering cross-cultural competence, and building bridges across community divides.

War does not change my personal art making process, but I think it does increase the public’s interest in new voices that have previously been ignored or underrepresented in American theatre, which will hopefully create the opportunities for their important participation.

Mo’olelo’s Fall 2005 production is Shirley Lauro’s powerful play A Piece of My Heart, which is based on the true stories of the diverse women who served in the Vietnam War. It’s a timely play as we find our nation once again divided about our involvement in a foreign war. The women veterans’ experiences offer the human stories that reveal the complexities of war in an even-handed way and invite all audiences, regardless of political affiliation, to feel represented, challenged, engaged and expanded, thus opening the space for important dialogue about our society. We’ve made the unprecedented move of partnering with the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center and Young Audiences of San Diego to present this play. It’s unprecedented because it deliberately forces the activist, artist, veteran, military and education communities to dialogue and to not objectify one another but to hear the diversity of perspectives within each of our communities. We’ll present public performances that will be followed by discussions and school performances followed by in-class workshops led by teams of actors and Vietnam Veterans.

Browning : Do you feel new challenges or pressures either internal or external as a result of living and making art in a country at war? Opportunities?

Sueko: It’s unfortunate that it takes a war to increase the interest from our cultural institutions in a Muslim female theatre artist, but that’s exactly what has happened. I think in many cases, the decision-makers at many of our nation’s top cultural institutions are being forced by their audiences, who are struggling with our current global environment, to share new voices. The challenges, however, are exactly the same: ensuring that what’s presented on these stages is not objectification of “the other,” but honest stories executed with integrity.

Browning : Is there a community aspect to your work? If so, could you tell us a little bit about it and the reactions of audiences and community members?

Sueko: There is a very important community aspect of the work of my theatre company, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company. I am perplexed by theatre that exists independent of, in spite of, or irrespective of the community in which it is produced. After all, to make theatre, you need three important ingredients: text, actors and audience. How will you engage your audience and discover new audiences if your art exists outside of the community? This involves engaging all members of the community, not just those traditionally invited to participate in our cultural institutions.

At Mo`olelo we deliberately pursue community partnerships on each of our projects. In February we presented a play about nuclear testing called The Land Southward with The Peace and Democracy Action Group of the Unitarian Church of San Diego. In March we are presenting an exciting new play called The Squirrel Wife by an emerging Korean American playwright, Kimber Lee, with ASIA: The Journal of Culture & Commerce and The Taiwanese American Community Center. And our 2004 play remains forged partnerships with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Voices of Women, JITLI, and Israeli and Palestinian visual artists. We learn new things from each of our community partners, and they open the door to new audiences for Mo`olelo and ensure authenticity and integrity in our presentations.

Browning : How do you sustain yourself in your work over the long haul, especially in this political climate? Do you have any recommendations for other women artists who may be feeling discouraged or frustrated?

Sueko: I am fortunate that San Diego has some wonderful organizations that provide important resources to Mo`olelo and other theatre artists. For example, the San Diego Performing Arts League offers a program called Business Volunteers for the Arts, and through them we received pro bono services from attorneys, accountants, marketing professionals, graphic artists, and business leaders. This has allowed Mo`olelo to thrive in our current environment of reduced funding for the arts.

My only recommendation for other women artists is to take a seat at important civic dialogues in your communities – don’t wait to be invited, just take that seat. Get involved with your arts commissions, your chambers of commerce, your local government, grass-roots organizations, anything and everything that interests you. Then sing your story loud and clear. I think we artists often self-impose a certain self-effacing segregation from our larger communities, thinking civic leaders don’t really want to hear about the daily triumphs and struggles of artists. But I have found that once I educate my audiences, patrons, and donors about the low pay or the lack of health insurance for most artists, they appreciate the new information. And often they feel a personal responsibility to improve the cultural infrastructure of our society by contributing to increased payments for artists or diversifying the voices that have access to the arts.

Browning : What can our readers do to support you and other artists like you?

Sueko: Bring yourself and your talents to San Diego. Our community is currently engaged in an important dialogue about the impact of theatre in our civic society, how we share our story about the diversity of new work created here with the rest of the nation, and increasing funding for small and mid-sized union theatres. The local newspapers, TV stations, community leaders, and community foundations want to make San Diego a nationally-competitive arts destination by 2009. We can ensure the diversity of voices involved in that conversation only with an infusion of great women artists here. Call me at Mo’olelo, 619-342-7395, I want to know about your work, and I want to convince you to move here. For more information about Mo’olelo: www.moolelo.net

About Seema Sueko

Seema Sueko is the Artistic Director of Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company in San Diego, California, a theatre and community arts organization dedicated to bringing to life untold community stories, presenting contemporary plays, and training youth in technical theatre and design. Sueko is also a playwright and actor; her play Remains was Mo’olelo’s premiere production. Her acting awards include the Chicago “Jeff Citation” Award for her performances in the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman’s The Crime of the Century, The Waiting Room, and A Piece of my Heart. Read More>>

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Octavia McBride-Ahebee: Celebrate the Human Spirit

I am unequivocally a citizen of the world. Pieces of me are everywhere and somewhere – unfortunately, there is always war. Consequently, my writing is informed and consumed by this bleak fact. As an artist, who had until quite recently lived abroad and returned home to the States as a result of a civil war in my adopted country of Cote d’Ivoire, I am overwhelmed by a sense of urgency to share, with people who are privileged and protected from the realities of war, what those realities are. I am as equally besieged by a need to push to center stage the victims of war and affirm and give dimensions to their experiences.

It has been such a surreal experience to leave one country because of war and return to seek safety in my home country, which is itself engaged in war. There are many times when I go to bed, in Philadelphia, completely disheartened by the human and material losses the war in Iraq continuously exacts. And in my sleepy despondency, I am, too often, awakened by early morning phone calls from Abidjan. The calls are from Osman, the wonderful man who took care of my family and my home and who helped me to understand the new culture I had joined there. An immigrant from Burkina Faso, who has worked his whole adult life in Cote d’Ivoire, he is now a target in a very vicious ethnic contest for power. Always a dignified man, he tells me, “Madame, c’est pas bon, ici.” It is not good here. He proceeds to tell me, with quiet dignity, how war can so easily strip you of everything, especially your self-esteem.

Suzanne Akissa may call. An Ivorian, she was my son Auguste’s best friend and caretaker. An older woman, whose employment in my home enabled her to leave an abusive husband and even create a little side business for herself, she has been devastated by the conflict in Cote d’Ivoire on so many levels – even losing a son. What little money I can send periodically via Western Union cannot begin to restore their lives and give them a promise for the future.

I left my husband, Big Auguste, in his village, in an unmarked grave with no flowers and an expansive view of the highway that now serves as the divide between the two warring sides. The village and the highway were landmarks that lead to places and times of love and happiness. None of that remains now.

Cote d’Ivoire, once an oasis of peace and prosperity in a region bloodied by war, was a refuge for many people fleeing war, especially Liberians. They became my closest friends and their stories of war I came to know by heart. I visited Liberia in 2000 and I was not prepared to see first-hand what war destroys so easily and with vicious finesse.

Since returning to the States, two things are so clear to me now; the world is indeed small and people seldom learn lessons from one other. My city of Philadelphia is home to a growing Liberian and Ivorian community. The divisions that spawned the civil conflicts in their home countries have stayed intact in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Money continues to be raised inside cafes and fraternal centers to buy arms and sustain different power bases.

By and large, what and who I write about – African women, refugee women, women who are new immigrants, women who are victims of civil war, etc. – are not what people want to hear about. But what is more celebratory than the human spirit putting up a grand fight against the evils of war? It is this human spirit that I celebrate. And I go everywhere, most times with my nine-year-old daughter, Sojourner, and I tell a few stories. With my friend, Monica McIntyre, a fabulous cellist, we bring varied audiences, through words and string, to situations that demand to be acknowledged.

This is a beginning.

About Octavia McBride-Ahebee

Octavia McBride-Ahebee is a writer of poetry, short stories and plays. Born in Philadelphia, PA, McBride-Ahebee lived for nine years in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. A former reporter for The Philadelphia Tribune , her literary work has appeared in such books and journals as The Beloit Poetry Journal, International Quarterly: Faces of the Americas, The Eagle Spirit, and Timbooktu. Her debut collection of poetry, Assuming Voices, is published by Lit Pot Press (www.litpotpress.com). She is at work on a play with music, Full Circle , about the experience of enslavement, genocide, and exile. Read More>>

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Haifa Bint-Kadi: Peace Begins with a Vision

Sarah Browning: What role do you see for the arts in a time of war? Does war change your art making process or the art itself?

Haifa Bint-Kadi: Artists have always been known as the individuals who can speak when it is not safe to speak and who can act when it’s not safe to act. I choose my career as an artist because I was always a bit anti-authority as a youth. I knew that things were awry with our system of government and with the way women are sexualized and objectified in our culture in America, but I often got in trouble when I tried to resist in high school.

Even though I was born in America, teachers generally knew that I was a first generation American, an Arab, and I was often cast as the “other,” so I became marginalized and withdrew into a world of my own making. I wrote poetry, made 8-mm films on a home movie camera and I painted. I did a lot of mixed-media collage to speak out and resist the oppression I found around me.

Artists do not have to answer to corporate structures and authoritarian systems and that allows us the freedom to speak and act out in our art about the injustices that exist. How can you live in a country that wreaks havoc and destruction of war upon small and disempowered peoples for the sake of corporate interests, and not have something to say about it? My art ALWAYS reflects my experience and because I am absolutely incapable of being a passive observer to life around me, I must speak and communicate about injustices and my art is a direct form of resistance.

I am angry about this war and yes, my anger shows in my resistance pieces. At the same time, I truly believe that to seek peace, to want it and to make it happen, begins with a vision. You have to be a person who works every day, every minute towards that vision. For me, I build bridges. I believe in grassroots efforts. I organize meetings and art projects in my home between Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Jews. I try to get involved in my community.

Browning: Has being a woman had an impact on your approach to your work on themes of war and peace? Your cultural identity?

Bint-Kadi: I often wonder how many women remember the pain, humiliation and awkwardness of being a teenage girl walking down the street to the catcalls, whistles, and drive-by insults of males who felt completely empowered to objectify our bodies? As women, we are the pursued and I know these experiences constantly shape and mold our identities.

I know that not all men objectify women, but certainly objectification plays a major role in war. American culture has mastered this tool and anytime we declare an enemy, it begins with objectification, by carving out the perceived enemy as less than us, as different than us and less deserving of all we benefit from in America. As a direct result of being pursued and objectified, I have become an expert in recognizing when it’s being used as a tool of propaganda. Women get that in a way that men might not be as sensitized to.

I’m a Muslim woman. I cover my head as my religion requires. I don’t feel oppressed. I actually feel relieved and released. My contact with people, particularly men, is not about the “look” of me, but about our dialogue and what I bring intellectually. Let me tell you, THAT is a form of freedom!

My art definitely seeks to address the destruction that we create when we objectify and try to control the world to fulfill our own desires. In my mixed media pieces I often juxtapose iconic fashion images with images of war and destruction. I use text to make people think about how words are used as symbols, so that almost a hypnotic effect consumes our minds. For example, you say, “gap” and our teenagers think fashion that makes me a member of the hip crowd. But it’s never just about good clothes at decent prices if global sweat shops make the low prices possible.

As Americans we can’t seem to get enough. I’m not OK with that. I can live with less gas so that others can have peace, and although that is simplified, it is that simple. This war is about corporate greed, so my art tries to ask: When will our bellies be full? When will Americans be willing to give up their cheap designer knock-offs and Nike’s so that 8-year-old children in India don’t have to sacrifice their youth and health to our unquenchable thirst for fashion? When will it not be OK to blow up villages so I can keep my SUV in petrol?

Browning: What goals do you have for your war-and-peace-themed art? Are they different from the goals for your non-war themed work?

Bint-Kadi: We live in a time in which mind control is considered good slick advertising. The image rules and that’s why naked models are back on the hoods of cars selling sex to men and lip gloss to our teenage girls. In my work my goal is to resist mind control and the corporate agenda. I want our young women and men to feel empowered to speak and resist. I want it to be OK again to demand that women stop being sexualized and objectified in our culture. Have you seen the commercial where the brawny Aussie outback muscle-bound man comes in with a floor cleaner to save the distressed damsel from the muddy kangaroo hoof prints in her kitchen? Kangaroo in your kitchen, no problem, but muddy floors, declare a crisis and send in the big man because women are still so helpless.

Browning: Do you feel new challenges or pressures – either internal or external – as a result of living and making art in a country at war? Opportunities?

Bint-Kadi: War is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to reflect on why, in 2005, violence is still the only right answer to any question one may ask about global politics. We must remember that the war was not just an event that suddenly happened. War in the Middle East was planned long before September 11, so to respond reactively doesn’t get us anywhere. I try not to be reactive in my work, but instead to stimulate a connection between the Powers That Be and the ways in which they use the media, movies, and consumerism to shape our perception of reality. I use my art to challenge notions about media-generated reality vs. the reality that hides under the surface. I may hide text under layers of paint or I may use popular symbols in a form of plastic encasement. I use strings and pieces of leather to connect and disconnect certain symbols in my art. I try to create a sort of narrative that is incomplete. It leaves the viewer to ponder and think deeply about what message I might be trying to convey.

Browning: Is there a community aspect to your work? If so, could you tell us a little bit about it and the reactions of audiences and community members?

Bint-Kadi: All of my work is about community. I’m working on a project now called the Jewish Muslim Mosaic Project. I was disturbed by the stereotype that Jews and Muslims have a historic relationship of conflict. That’s propaganda, but it’s not historically true or accurate. Muslims and Jews actually have a long and fruitful history of shared peaceful culture. I had researched Andalusia society and found a beautiful model of peaceful coexistence. In Medieval Spain, Muslims and Jews maintained their cultural and religious traditions while sharing their knowledge and scholarship. They wrote scholarly texts together, they studied and learned together, and they created magnificent art together. Peaceful coexistence was based not just on mutual tolerance, but on actual celebration and appreciation for what each culture had to offer the other.

Our legal system in America forces us to tolerate each other. That’s not enough for me. I think one way to obtain peace in Israel and Palestine is to build relationships with each other. You will never be able to mandate peace, but if people can discover that they can benefit from each other, that their world will be more rich and valuable by living together and sharing each other’s culture, then we may have a place to build peace. When you love and appreciate your neighbors, you don’t want to lose them because they make your house a home, they form part of your community. You are willing to listen and compromise. In my project, I provide Muslims and Jews an opportunity to know each other intimately, to listen to each other and to learn from each other. We’ve discovered that we have more in common than we ever imagined.

Browning: How do you sustain yourself in your work over the long haul, especially in this political climate? Do you have any recommendations for other women artists who may be feeling discouraged or frustrated?

Bint-Kadi: Sustainability is an issue always for me, not just in a climate of war. As artists, we sometimes get bogged down in our own little world, so I try to resist that. I pray, meditate, eat organic whole foods, and listen to Nina Simone, the Gypsy Kings, and Classical Arabian music. I have a deep, committed spiritual life and my relationship to God as my Creator is truly my greatest source of sustainability.

I have always followed my passion and I make sure that I surround myself with things and people that inspire me. I keep a sketchbook in which I immediately document ideas, thoughts and drawings for my art. I save bits of string and containers that I find interesting even though they are often other people’s garbage. I use a lot of found materials in my mosaics so I save everything and ask friends to save for me broken dishes, pottery, coins or anything they know I like to collect. When I work, I remember my friends and their stories, which become incorporated into my art. My passion is there and literally my life is in my work as a result.

Artists do not like to think about the notion of marketing their work, and I certainly don’t like the concept, but you really have to be vigilant in terms of seeking opportunities to show your work. I make calls and pursue collectors who I think might be interested. I seek out galleries whose collections and exhibits I loved and I try to form relationships with the curators and other artists. I use the internet and sites that are willing to display my work and bio. I live in a loft in an artist’s cooperative, which means that I have a constant source of inspiration as well as honest, good people to lend constructive criticism. I have a lot of artists as friends because, after all, who better to understand life on the edge!

Browning: What can our readers do to support you and other artists like you?

Bint-Kadi: Everyone knows and it is understood that men are still capable of selling their art for higher prices. Somehow, I think women still get a pushed a bit into a kind of “crafty” identification, but certainly this has changed and evolved and will continue to do so. As long as we continue to address this I hope the disparity will continue to decrease. Buy women’s art at prices that makes their lives sustainable as artists!

I always need opportunities to expose others to my work. Not everyone will relate to it, but everyone will get a glimpse into my life and in a small way connect and interact with me. I think Americans in general don’t think about Muslims as artists and I constantly have to deal with stereotypes. As a Palestinian woman, people assume that my work will be all about that conflict, and much of it is, but I also address many issues that I feel form the basis of violence. I’m a pacifist and I think people don’t expect that. But as a Muslim Sufi it is at the core of my being.

I hold open houses in my loft and I love to invite people who have not seen my work. My web site often lists my next open house date and by all means I can be called and emailed.

ABOUT HAIFA BINT-KADI

Haifa Bint-Kadi is an American Muslim of Palestinian heritage who works in mosaic. Classically trained in traditional mosaic at the Ravenna School of Art in Italy, Bint-Kadi combines both the traditional and contemporary. She is Artist-in-Resident for many schools and organizations in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and recently exhibited at the Tribe Gallery in Manhattan. She is currently at work on a Jewish/Muslim Mosaic Project to create a public art installation that breaks the stereotype that Jewish/Muslim relationships are inherently bound in conflict. She is also completing a public installation mosaic of an ancient mariner’s map of the Hudson River for the City of Peekskill to be installed in the Riverfront Green. Read More>>