An Interview with Hend al-Mansour
Interview by John Shorb
John Shorb is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and a B.A. from Carleton College.
Hend al-Mansour draws on women’s stories and Islamic art and architecture to create elaborate prints and installations, which reveal the complexities of faith and feminism for Arab women today. She has shown work at the University of St. Thomas, the University of St. Catherine, Gustavus Adolphus College, and the University of Minnesota, as well as at The Phipps Center for the Arts (Hudson, Wisconsin), and the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates. She holds a masters in fine arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She worked as a medical doctor for 18 years in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, she will have a solo show at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Al-Mansour lives and works in Minneapolis. We spoke about her work and its relationship to Islam as a religion and culture. —John Shorb
What do you see as the role of faith or religion in your artwork or in the process of making your artwork?
H: My relationship with my faith is rather complex. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense, but I am religious in the sense that I search for God, meaning that I try to understand who God is, or where She is. In this regard, I started with being very angry with my country, because I was seeking justice and equality for women, and I didn’t find it there. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I always thought it’s the system, it’s the government, but when I came to the United States, I started to think that religion played a large role in this, too. In Islamic teaching that I was exposed to in Saudi Arabia, I was taught that my body doesn’t belong to me, the women bear all the sins of the society, and all these kinds of things. I don’t want to feel bad to belong to my faith. I want to belong to my faith, and I want to feel good about the way I live my life.
I have a deep sense of roots. I can’t erase my past. I have to come to terms with it and understand how to use it in a good way. So I started making more work about what Islam means to me and what it means to people like me. And there are a lot of people like me.
You use patterns and various aspects of Islamic art in your work.
Yes, I am very drawn to Islamic art, and I wasn’t when I was in Saudi Arabia. That happened when I came here. I take different patterns and make them more contemporary, to reinterpret them, not just as something beautiful from the past.
That makes me think of your installations since they use a lot of these Islamic patterns and draw from Islamic art.
My installations have two aspects to them. One is that they tell stories of people who live now and here. The second aspect is that they are heavily influenced by Islamic art and architecture. And I always refer to arches and domes and the structures of Islamic art and architecture, such as mosques. For Fatimah in America, I interviewed five women who live in America but who are from the Middle East: Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Somalia. Then I made a room for each woman with elements of her personality and her culture. I tried to show their inner character or their soul in the room. Then I put them together in one big palace, though sometimes I would exhibit just one of the rooms.
I wanted to ask you about the focus on women’s equality and how that comes through in your work.
Yes, I’m really focused on bringing women’s stories into the power of art, not necessarily on telling people what to think. I’m working now on a project called Mihrab. Mihrab is Arabic for the hermitage where intense worship takes place. It is this niche in each mosque that is oriented toward Mecca. It’s the holiest spot in the mosque. So I’m making mihrabs as spiritual portraits. I’m interviewing Arab women. I was inspired by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party for this project where you have all these different women’s representations around a table. I think my project will highlight women’s intimacy with the Divine and also question the male-dominant kinship to God. The full project will have twenty-two rooms, which represent twenty-two Arab countries. I’m working on three of them right now and I’ve interviewed four people so far. I’ve also done miniatures to model what the bigger installation pieces will look like.
John Shorb is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and a B.A. from Carleton College.
Hend al-Mansour draws on women’s stories and Islamic art and architecture to create elaborate prints and installations, which reveal the complexities of faith and feminism for Arab women today. She has shown work at the University of St. Thomas, the University of St. Catherine, Gustavus Adolphus College, and the University of Minnesota, as well as at The Phipps Center for the Arts (Hudson, Wisconsin), and the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates. She holds a masters in fine arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She worked as a medical doctor for 18 years in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, she will have a solo show at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Al-Mansour lives and works in Minneapolis. We spoke about her work and its relationship to Islam as a religion and culture. —John Shorb
What do you see as the role of faith or religion in your artwork or in the process of making your artwork?
H: My relationship with my faith is rather complex. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense, but I am religious in the sense that I search for God, meaning that I try to understand who God is, or where She is. In this regard, I started with being very angry with my country, because I was seeking justice and equality for women, and I didn’t find it there. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I always thought it’s the system, it’s the government, but when I came to the United States, I started to think that religion played a large role in this, too. In Islamic teaching that I was exposed to in Saudi Arabia, I was taught that my body doesn’t belong to me, the women bear all the sins of the society, and all these kinds of things. I don’t want to feel bad to belong to my faith. I want to belong to my faith, and I want to feel good about the way I live my life.
I have a deep sense of roots. I can’t erase my past. I have to come to terms with it and understand how to use it in a good way. So I started making more work about what Islam means to me and what it means to people like me. And there are a lot of people like me.
You use patterns and various aspects of Islamic art in your work.
Yes, I am very drawn to Islamic art, and I wasn’t when I was in Saudi Arabia. That happened when I came here. I take different patterns and make them more contemporary, to reinterpret them, not just as something beautiful from the past.
That makes me think of your installations since they use a lot of these Islamic patterns and draw from Islamic art.
My installations have two aspects to them. One is that they tell stories of people who live now and here. The second aspect is that they are heavily influenced by Islamic art and architecture. And I always refer to arches and domes and the structures of Islamic art and architecture, such as mosques. For Fatimah in America, I interviewed five women who live in America but who are from the Middle East: Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Somalia. Then I made a room for each woman with elements of her personality and her culture. I tried to show their inner character or their soul in the room. Then I put them together in one big palace, though sometimes I would exhibit just one of the rooms.
I wanted to ask you about the focus on women’s equality and how that comes through in your work.
Yes, I’m really focused on bringing women’s stories into the power of art, not necessarily on telling people what to think. I’m working now on a project called Mihrab. Mihrab is Arabic for the hermitage where intense worship takes place. It is this niche in each mosque that is oriented toward Mecca. It’s the holiest spot in the mosque. So I’m making mihrabs as spiritual portraits. I’m interviewing Arab women. I was inspired by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party for this project where you have all these different women’s representations around a table. I think my project will highlight women’s intimacy with the Divine and also question the male-dominant kinship to God. The full project will have twenty-two rooms, which represent twenty-two Arab countries. I’m working on three of them right now and I’ve interviewed four people so far. I’ve also done miniatures to model what the bigger installation pieces will look like.
Hend al-Mansour
Mihrab
2016
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
You worked on another collaborative work called Shadow Sisters. Could you talk about the process of that work?
I worked with the artist Michal Sagar who is Jewish. In our culture, Jews and Arabs are seen as perpetual enemies, and I just wanted to cross that barrier. In reality, when Arabs and Jews come together, if they don’t have these ideas in their minds, they are close because the cultures and languages are so similar.
I did another collaborative work with a woman artist who is a Shiite Muslim, and I am a Sunni Muslim. It was called The Great Mothers of Islam, and we portrayed Mohammad’s wives in our installation. The significant thing is that Leilie Tajaddod focused mostly on one woman who is hated by Shiites but loved by Sunnis who is one of Mohammad’s wives, and I focused on Mohammad’s daughter who is beloved by Shiites.
Could you talk about the piece Al-Badr?
I worked on this piece for a long time. I called it “Al-Badr,” which means full moon in Arabic. Muhammad was called full moon by the women of Medina when they sang a famous song welcoming him to their city. The piece shows the upper parts of the bodies of a woman and a man in the nude. I represented Allah with a woman and Muhammad with a man. They are in an embrace in the shape of the Star of David shape. It also alludes to sexual intimacy. These are small prints. There is calligraphy that is made by intertwining the words Muhammad and Allah. Before Muhammad became a prophet, he meditated in the cave of Hira, seeking truth and seeking God. To me, he was seeking knowledge. In this print, Mohammed’s hands are raised up and God’s hands are descending as if giving him what he is seeking.
Mihrab
2016
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
You worked on another collaborative work called Shadow Sisters. Could you talk about the process of that work?
I worked with the artist Michal Sagar who is Jewish. In our culture, Jews and Arabs are seen as perpetual enemies, and I just wanted to cross that barrier. In reality, when Arabs and Jews come together, if they don’t have these ideas in their minds, they are close because the cultures and languages are so similar.
I did another collaborative work with a woman artist who is a Shiite Muslim, and I am a Sunni Muslim. It was called The Great Mothers of Islam, and we portrayed Mohammad’s wives in our installation. The significant thing is that Leilie Tajaddod focused mostly on one woman who is hated by Shiites but loved by Sunnis who is one of Mohammad’s wives, and I focused on Mohammad’s daughter who is beloved by Shiites.
Could you talk about the piece Al-Badr?
I worked on this piece for a long time. I called it “Al-Badr,” which means full moon in Arabic. Muhammad was called full moon by the women of Medina when they sang a famous song welcoming him to their city. The piece shows the upper parts of the bodies of a woman and a man in the nude. I represented Allah with a woman and Muhammad with a man. They are in an embrace in the shape of the Star of David shape. It also alludes to sexual intimacy. These are small prints. There is calligraphy that is made by intertwining the words Muhammad and Allah. Before Muhammad became a prophet, he meditated in the cave of Hira, seeking truth and seeking God. To me, he was seeking knowledge. In this print, Mohammed’s hands are raised up and God’s hands are descending as if giving him what he is seeking.
Hend al-Mansour
Fatimah in America 2
2007
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
I saw that you used Al-Badr in Fatimah in America.
Yes, I made different sized cubes with the image printed on top of each one and made a three-dimensional pattern in the installation.
What experience from Fatimah in America do you hope people will have?
The ultimate goal for me is to raise awareness of women’s equality though these stories. But most of the time, it ends up raising awareness about Islam. Afterward, people ask a lot of questions about Islam, especially in America, and I think it shows a very human side of Islamic culture.
Fatimah in America 2
2007
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
I saw that you used Al-Badr in Fatimah in America.
Yes, I made different sized cubes with the image printed on top of each one and made a three-dimensional pattern in the installation.
What experience from Fatimah in America do you hope people will have?
The ultimate goal for me is to raise awareness of women’s equality though these stories. But most of the time, it ends up raising awareness about Islam. Afterward, people ask a lot of questions about Islam, especially in America, and I think it shows a very human side of Islamic culture.
Hend al-Mansour
Fatimah in America 2
(lower image includes the
print of Al-Badr)
2007
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
Right, I was curious about Habiba’s Chamber. You showed this installation in the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates at the Sharjah Art Museum.
Yes, I have an interesting story about showing it at Sharjah. They didn’t want the woman’s portrait in the room itself. They thought of it as a small mosque, so they thought she shouldn’t be in there, especially in a short skirt. You know men and women are separated in the mosques. But I can’t not show her because it’s what the entire work is about—it’s her room. The Emir comes to open all official art shows, and he came and walked through all the galleries and talked to each artist. So I put the portrait near the room and it was lighted. When he came, they tried to keep him away from it. And he looked at me and commented that Saudi Arabian women are liberal, kind of teasing me, acknowledging that I’m doing something that most Saudi Arabian women don’t do. And I said, yes, because they are oppressed. He wasn’t offended by the work at all.
Fatimah in America 2
(lower image includes the
print of Al-Badr)
2007
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
Right, I was curious about Habiba’s Chamber. You showed this installation in the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates at the Sharjah Art Museum.
Yes, I have an interesting story about showing it at Sharjah. They didn’t want the woman’s portrait in the room itself. They thought of it as a small mosque, so they thought she shouldn’t be in there, especially in a short skirt. You know men and women are separated in the mosques. But I can’t not show her because it’s what the entire work is about—it’s her room. The Emir comes to open all official art shows, and he came and walked through all the galleries and talked to each artist. So I put the portrait near the room and it was lighted. When he came, they tried to keep him away from it. And he looked at me and commented that Saudi Arabian women are liberal, kind of teasing me, acknowledging that I’m doing something that most Saudi Arabian women don’t do. And I said, yes, because they are oppressed. He wasn’t offended by the work at all.
Hend al-Mansour
Habiba’s Chamber
2012
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
In the piece she’s holding a cell phone and a cat and wearing a hijab.
This Habiba is from Saudi Arabia and when she came to America, she was wearing hijab. She is very happy and likes to party. But she is also deeply religious. And some days she would wear hijab and some days she wouldn’t. That was very revealing to me. There’s a certain freedom to this. It’s your choice what you reveal and what you do not. And the pattern behind her is the male headgear pattern. It’s very masculine.
Why did you choose that pattern?
Because she’s engulfed in it. She’s so in that world, but she has her own way of dealing with it.
But she is also living in the United States. Are you concerned about how Muslims are being characterized in the press? Is there a role for your work in helping overcome stereotypes in a volatile atmosphere?
Yes, of course. The press feeds the society what is easy and comfortable to believe. There is always a tendency to alienate who is different and project all the evil on them. That makes life easier to understand: there should be good and there should be evil. First-generation immigrants like me feel this tendency vividly because we experience it in both homes. In Saudi Arabia, I was part of the majority who alienates all other minorities, and here in the U.S. I am part of one minority. So I saw this human trait from both perspectives.
The image of the Muslims that most of the press propagates does not reflect me or my family in Arabia at all. Because my work speaks a different language, I often find myself explaining and answering questions about what Islam is like and how Muslim people live. So, although I intend in my work to call for gender equality, my work itself is educational in terms of portraying Muslims as real people who have a complex mix of good and evil, like all other peoples.
Habiba’s Chamber
2012
Installation
Courtesy of the artist
In the piece she’s holding a cell phone and a cat and wearing a hijab.
This Habiba is from Saudi Arabia and when she came to America, she was wearing hijab. She is very happy and likes to party. But she is also deeply religious. And some days she would wear hijab and some days she wouldn’t. That was very revealing to me. There’s a certain freedom to this. It’s your choice what you reveal and what you do not. And the pattern behind her is the male headgear pattern. It’s very masculine.
Why did you choose that pattern?
Because she’s engulfed in it. She’s so in that world, but she has her own way of dealing with it.
But she is also living in the United States. Are you concerned about how Muslims are being characterized in the press? Is there a role for your work in helping overcome stereotypes in a volatile atmosphere?
Yes, of course. The press feeds the society what is easy and comfortable to believe. There is always a tendency to alienate who is different and project all the evil on them. That makes life easier to understand: there should be good and there should be evil. First-generation immigrants like me feel this tendency vividly because we experience it in both homes. In Saudi Arabia, I was part of the majority who alienates all other minorities, and here in the U.S. I am part of one minority. So I saw this human trait from both perspectives.
The image of the Muslims that most of the press propagates does not reflect me or my family in Arabia at all. Because my work speaks a different language, I often find myself explaining and answering questions about what Islam is like and how Muslim people live. So, although I intend in my work to call for gender equality, my work itself is educational in terms of portraying Muslims as real people who have a complex mix of good and evil, like all other peoples.
