Aesthetics of Solidarity by Arab American and Arab Diaspora Artists in the US, 1948–Present

FAIN: RZ-300043-24

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
Salah D. Hassan (Project Director: November 2023 to present)

A conference on expressions of solidarity in art by Arab American artists. (12 months)

This convening considers how Arab American artists and Arab artists living in diaspora throughout the US used their art to draw attention to contemporary issues and show their solidarity with people facing global injustices like imperialism, violence, and racism. Solidarities crossed geographical and ideological lines, thus revealing parallels between struggles, like Black and Palestinian liberation. This project contributes to the developing field of Arab American art history by showing the political, subversive side of these artists’ works, and the networks which facilitated their dissemination. Furthermore, this research bolsters the interdisciplinary field of Arab American studies by deepening our understanding of US diversity, the political affiliations of Arabs in the US, and sociopolitical activisms in a globalized world, thus inviting new definitions of transnational, diasporic solidarity in an Arab diaspora context shaped by visual culture as critical primary source material.