Digitally Mediated Art in the War Zone: The Aesthetics of Resilience in Yemen
Author(s) |
Nurgul Oruc |
Contact |
Nurgul Oruc, Qatar University, P.O. Box: 2713 Doha, Qatar. E-mail: n.oruc@qu.edu.qa |
Issue |
CyberOrient, Vol. 14, Iss. 2, 2020, pp. 4-37 |
Published |
December 15, 2020 |
Type |
Article |
Abstract |
The current civil war in Yemen has been largely ignored by mainstream media, with
the majority of coverage spotlighting the military aspect of the conflict. Yemeni artists
challenge this absence of narratives reflecting the suffering of thousands of Yemeni men,
women, and children by exposing the actual situation to the outside world through various
artifacts shared on digital media platforms. Despite the significance of contemplating
creative endeavors in conflict zones and the burgeoning interest in cultural production
both during and after the Arab Spring in the Middle East, contemporary Yemeni creative
expressions have been largely neglected by scholars working on the Middle East. This article
traces how Yemeni artists have intervened in the representation of the conflict and
war in Yemen since 2011. It analyzes the heterogonous artistic forms, contents, and representational
strategies that Yemeni artists and filmmakers have employed to express their
collective concerns over war and destruction. The constraints and limitations imposed by
the conflict have also shaped the creative expressions of Yemeni wartime artists, especially
in terms of sharing their work both with their own communities and with the wider
world. While their creative work manifests the suffering of a nation, it also constitutes a
refusal to live under weakness and lack of hope for the future. The concepts of tactical and
participatory media and socially engaged art are used to refer to the production and dissemination
of a variety of creative responses to the ongoing crisis in Yemen, as illustrated
through selected art media forms. |
Keywords |
Yemen, digital activist art, street art, art and film in conflict zones, resilience through art, art and civic engagement, tactical and participatory media
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