Palestinian artist inspired by women in refugee camp
Nisaa FM: - Rana Samara is a cutting-edge Palestinian artist, looking at a fundamental aspect of our humanity: intimacy. She considers intimacy a mix of connection, comfort and feeling at home.
When asked to define intimacy, Samara does this with a story from when she studied in Chicago. In the beginning the city, the people, everything felt really cold. Only when she was eating at a local Middle Eastern restaurant did she feel soothed because of the music, the food, the table and the owner. Eating on her own, she found was really intimate. “The act of eating is intimate. This might sound weird, but I was asking all of the people who were eating alone if I could join them and eat together.”
Conversations from refugee camp led to art series “Intimate Space”
To investigate the feeling of intimacy, Samara spent months in Al-Amari Refugee Camp, speaking with women about sensitive topics such as virginity, intimacy, sexual desire and gender norms, revealing their convictions about relationships and roles.
Rana showed up as a listener, making no pre-judgments, simply displaying a willingness to understand. These conversations form the cornerstone of Rana’s recent artwork.
“At Al-Amari Refugee Camp I began wondering about the private lives of couples living in such condensed spaces that afford them almost no privacy,” Samara tells. “This privacy is especially difficult to achieve considering the large size of most Palestinian families and the cramped proximity in which neighbours and families live.”
With “Intimate Spaces” she depicts rooms with unmade beds, with clear signs of the recent lovemaking. The colours are bright, the sensation they convey is warmth and comfort.
The Palestinian artist involves other people in her art. Sometimes this means having conversations with women on themes that are not spoken about openly in Palestinian society or are even regarded as taboo. “I lived in the refugee camp for seven months and I met women; we talked about food, cooking, kids, and only then could I ask my questions. I have always been good at making people talk about personal subjects. I have been told I’m a good listener.”
Rana Samara’s long way to contemporary art
Rana Samara is seen as a bit of a rebel. A mother of three and hailing from a conservative background, she pursued a bachelor’s degree at the International Art Academy, Ramallah, and a two-year MA in Fine Art at Northwestern University in Chicago.
“Since I was a child I have always been interested in colours and been fascinated with everything that moved around me,” she says. “I was always drawing and always knew I wanted to be an artist but had to figure out precisely what shape that would take. Where I finally found myself was contemporary art.”
When asked whether she, as a female artist, faces difficulties in the art world, she responds that if women really want something they will go for it. “There are no artists in my family, and my dad wanted me to study finance, but after one semester I dropped out of school to study art.” Later she discovered that being a mother and an artist was hard. “I was fighting with my family, with my ex-husband. They kept on questioning what I was doing, pointing out that I couldn’t make a living out of art plus I was a woman. In Palestine in particular, the only way to make a living with art is to be a teacher.”
Her “Intimate Space” series was presented recently by Ramallah’s Zawyeh Gallery at Art Dubai 2017,.
Zawyeh Gallery came onto the scene already when she had just graduated. “The gallerist came to my exhibition and was fascinated by my paintings. To my great surprise he even bought them, which was really shocking for me at the time.”
What, does she think, caught the gallery’s attention? “Look, there are a lot of artists in Palestine. All the artists are talking about the political struggle in Palestine; I’m doing that too, but through a different lens.”
Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com