On Culture and the Power of the Dispossessed

A Conversation with Abdo Shanan and Walid Aidoud

The dynamic relationship between culture and power, both political and economic, was central to the work of Edward W. Said. Culture is often used to suppress, control, and dominate, but it can also be a tool of resistance and subversion that has its own immanent power. How does this conceptualization resonate with your realities?

Abdo Shanan It became clear to me while working on Dry that the identity crisis we can now witness in Algerian society goes back to the creation of the Algerian nation state in 1962. After gaining independence from imperial France, the young Algerian government sought to homogenize the diverse population by creating a national identity that equated being “Algerian” with being “Muslim” and

“Arab,” thus excluding the non-Arabic and non-Muslim minorities from the Algerian nation. Funnily enough, this construed collective identity is based on the same characteristics the colons had used to describe, divide, and rule their colonial Algerian subjects. Algerians had fought for eight years for their human dignity and the right to self-determination, and when it came to re-inventing the “Algerian,” we proved to be trapped in the colonial “Othering.” In that sense,

I think we are yet to decolonize.

Later, this recycled idea of “Algerianness” became the tool of the

Algerian government to control its people, dictating cultural identity and practices through the national education system and the monopoly of public discourse. When interviewing different people for

Dry it became apparent to me how much pain and loneliness this national project of homogenization has caused on the emotional level for those people who don’t relate to these markers of identity.

Now, however, with alternative sources of knowledge being more

accessible through social media and the internet in general, the younger generations experiment with and practice different forms of self-expression, going hand in hand with a re-invention of language, aesthetics, and general attitude. We now have artists, writers, and photographers on the rise in Algeria presenting alternative outlooks and aspirations while being conscious and weary of the pitfalls of neoliberalism.

Walid Aidoud The establishment of the new Algerian culture and the general development of Algerian society after its independence from France can only be understood against the background of this tremendously violent colonial experience. Algeria’s post-independence government might have tried to pretend to position itself in juxtaposition to the colonial rule in order to distance themselves from the disastrous socio-economic situation that resulted from the overexploitation of Algerian land and people under French colonial rule. This is the nature of politics, that compelling necessity to respond to economic realities, its vulnerability. Art, culture, every cultural practice, however, are more resilient in that regard. They continue to exist and create even in such a hostile environment as colonialism. In Algeria we nowadays have cultural practices that have resisted 130 years of colonialism, despite the attempts of the colons to destroy every cultural heritage in order to better control the Algerian population. And this still resonates today. There is this self-understanding rooted in that historic resilience that manifests in various artistic disciplines: music, theater, photography, visual arts. Growing up in Algeria means being surrounded with post-colonialism and post-socialism at all times, not only in theory but in practice. A simple farmer who has never attended school or participated in any kind of artistic performance will practice and live all these ideas and ideals of postcolonial and anticapitalist theories intuitively. And he or she will do so without succumbing to any sort of extremism because for them it’s a genuine conviction, not a lifestyle they have bought.

The postcolonial theories that have become popular in the north have been a reality for hundreds of years in the south. But if we talk about the subversive potential of culture, culture as a means to challenge power, do you believe this is an elitist approach? Who has access to culture in Algeria?

AS In Algeria, as everywhere in the world, the political and economic elites appropriate artistic and cultural production and make sure to maintain their privileges and power through exclusionary practices.

A major mean of exclusion is language: an important part of Algerian culture and art is transmitted in French, the language of the former colonial power, even though almost the entire public education system was Arabized in the 1970s. Therefore, only the very few who can afford a private-school education are proficient in French.

With the internet being available for a larger part of the population, however, our generation of artists has been able to gain access to knowledge that allows them to exist and express themselves artistically. I learned photography autodidactically through YouTube and photography software that is available online. So did my peers, most of whom have a working or lower middle-class background and have never been to art school. The challenge will be to decentralize the space of cultural production and happenings as currently everything is focused on Algiers, the capital, and big cities like Oran, and to take it to the rural areas of the country as well.

WA Access and visibility in the cultural and artistic space are tied to opportunity structures that depend, among others, on social class and milieu. Who says that the processing of wool that has been done by Amazigh woman in the villages for centuries cannot be a powerful artistic practice? These women gather together with their neighbors to compose and perform a song for this act, they choose space and time for it. It’s an artistic performance, and it’s appropriated to be on display in prestigious galleries in the Global North, and it’s considered an exclusive art form that common people, like these

Amazigh women in their villages, would not understand. There are plenty of examples of these kinds of artistic practices to be found in the remotest areas of the African continent, but unfortunately the credit is not given to them but to those who appropriate their cultural property.

I have lived in different parts of Algeria, in small cities in the countryside as well as in the capital. Building on this experience,

I would say that in Algeria there has always been resistance to elitism and appropriation in the cultural sector. Whether it’s in

Oran, Annaba or in the Sahara, there have always been initiatives by creative artists aiming at promoting inclusion and diversity. One such initiative is the art space Box24 which we founded as a collective of Algerian artists. It aims at erasing the discriminatory effects

of social class to make the Algerian cultural sphere more inclusive and diverse. AS One good example for the creative and subversive potential of society’s “weakest” is the Hirak, the social movement of hundreds of thousands of Algerians protesting on the streets on a weekly basis, challenging the Algerian government and its executive. It was the disadvantaged and uneducated, politicized in the football stadiums, who were the first to hit the streets. They have invented slogans to express their dissatisfaction with the political and socio-economic situation. The slogans were not only a creative element but they resonated with large parts of a population who for the past 20 years had felt a profound powerlessness in view of an omnipotent government. The slogans became signs and songs one can now encounter in the weekly demonstrations on the streets of different cities throughout Algeria. What started as a desperate act of self-expression has developed into art, and in this case into art with a revolutionary potential.

Abdo, what is driving you in your work—is there some kind of overarching objective you’re pursuing?

AS Questions, actually. Even as a child I used to have many questions but I was too shy to verbalize them. Growing up I was not comfortable talking either, I always felt that my voice would crack, others appeared to be louder, more present, their ideas more powerful.

Photography became the medium allowing me to ask questions, to liberate my thoughts and to express myself. In 2009, I came back to

Algeria at the age of 28. I hadn’t been able to find a job in Libya, which I think was also due to the fact that I didn’t have Libyan citizenship. Back in Algeria, I thought I would return to a social environment that I considered mine. I was disappointed when I realized I had become an outsider there, too. This then raised the question of who I was, and that in turn would lead to Diary: Exile and later to Dry, in which I addressed this question to other people who crossed my path.

I don’t like to solely rely on studies when preparing a project.

I prefer talking to people, to memorize their faces and the feelings I connect to the encounter. This enriches my imagination, my visual style and the process of creating and articulating photos. In this regard you could say I prioritize knowledge that is intangible over the intellectualization of experiences and emotions. And I do appreciate the collective and interactive aspect of this procedure as well.

What made you decide to accept this invitation to the Barenboim-Said Akademie?

AS Music in its multifaceted nature has accompanied me since childhood. My father would listen to Western classical music a lot and

I remember that at some point I discovered Rachmaninoff’s Piano

Concerto No. 3. I felt this strong emotional connection to it that made me listen to it day and night. In fact, when growing up in rural Libya I didn’t have as much access to books as to music, so it has influenced my work from a very early stage. Another reason was the Barenboim-Said Akademie’s approach providing their students with an education in classical music and the Humanities. I think as an artist you need to understand as many different areas of life as possible. Isn’t it the métier of the artist to try to grasp and develop ideas that are extracted from different social realities and aesthetics?

WA I can’t say that I’m very knowledgeable when it comes to music. I do appreciate music a lot, as much as I appreciate poetry and literature, but by dint of working in sensitivity one becomes insensitive to everything… But I would stand up for every discipline and practice that presents alternative ideas and means for self-expression. So, working with Abdo on this exhibition of Dry, in this particular space that inscribes itself into the intellectual legacy of

Edward W. Said, for me is exactly that.

Interview: Amel Ouaissa