So far, we have discussed many artworks that target audiences in Arab states, yet these same artworks reverberate across the world resulting in various responses. Throughout our course, I have become increasingly disenchanted with notions of the ‘global’ and artists from the ‘global south’s focus on Western audiences. Of course, it is extremely important to disrespect borders and produce transnational dialogue; however, I wonder to what extent are these conversations useful to audiences in Muslim-majority countries. Some examples of artists, who while inspired by their countries’s issues, create works that ultimately remain with Western audiences, include, Rotana and Tamara Abdul Hadi. My main issue with their artworks is that their impact on their own countries’ sociopolitical circumstances could be amplified if only they were to feed their works back into their localities.

One artist that truly inspires me in her focus on her locality (Lebanon), while very much producing work that is received elsewhere is Nadine Labaki. Labaki is a Lebanese actor and film director, famous for Caramel (2005) and Where Do We Go Now? (2010). Both films attempt to highlight Beirut’s issues through a comedic, yet socially driven, feminist lens. She is also a founding member of the new political party, Beirut Madinati, an anti-sectarian political party hoping to mend the political turmoil of the city.

Her strategy of focusing on the social to highlight the political is key in her attempts to drive the point home about Beirut’s issues. For instance, rather than focusing on inaccurate and reductive Western representations of Beiruti’s, she focuses on Beirut’s people. In other words, her target audience seems to be the people of her city, as she responds to their ailments and not Western misrepresentation. Specifically, in Where Do We Go Now?, Labaki focuses on one Lebanese village and its Muslim and Christian populations struggle and triumph to coexist with each other. Throughout her movie, the women of the village are the protagonists driving the plot, and the village’s attempts to exist.

Why is this important? As I have implied in a previous post, Labaki’s work seems extremely potent to me as it directly addresses the inspirations behind the work. It doesn’t solely utilize a global platform to address its peoples, but rather speaks to the city of Beirut, asking and helping it to heal.

This is not to say that one strategy is better than the other. Of course, we need to maintain transnational dialogue. However, can a more intentional focus on the local be a more constructive way of feeding those global dialogues, while constructively stirring conversation and action in localities?