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Abstract
This article presents an alternative narrative about the role of transnational migration in Gulf societies, that was developed in the contemporary art scene. It was presented in 2016–17 in the shape of an exhibition at the third Kochi-Muziris Biennale of Contemporary Art in Kerala, South India and explored how contemporary art can provide a space of freedom to address certain delicate issues in the Gulf context. The exhibition was put on by a collective based in Dubai, but was presented abroad at a Biennale located in the state of Kerala that is famous for its massive outmigration to the Middle East. The article examines how this context of production influenced the contents presented at the Biennale, and considers how it may have been received.
Notes
1 This boat was already in place prior to the exhibition as part of the room’s decoration.
2 Wakefield, “Contemporary Art and Migrant Identity ‘Construction’ in the UAE and Qatar”, JAS 7.1 (2017), pp. 99–111.
3 Kendall, “Always Let the Road Decide: South Asian Labourers along the Highways of Dubai, UAE: A Photographic Essay”, South Asian Diaspora 4.1 (2012), pp. 45–55; Ithurbide, Géographie de l’art contemporain: villes, acteurs et territoires: le cas de Bombay (Inde), PhD diss. (2015).
4 Mirgani, “Introduction: Art and Cultural Production in the GCC”, JAS 7.1 (2017), pp. 1–11.
5 Cultural Engineering, “Cultural Engineering: Our Purpose”, originally available on the company’s website www.culturalengineering.org – although this website was no longer live by the time of going to print, possibly because of a domain conflict with a Europe-based company of the same name. The owners have since created an alternative website compiling their projects (www.binshabib.com/), but the quotes cited in this article no longer feature on the new website. Attempts to contact the owners about this directly remained fruitless.
6 Mirgani, “Introduction: Art and Cultural Production in the GCC”, p. 2.
7 Interview with Farah Sabobeh, Dubai, March 2017.
8 Ibid.
9 Moghadam, “L’art est mon métier: émergence et professionnalisation du marché de l’art à Dubaï”, Transcontinentales 12–13 (2012).
10 Interview with Vikram Divecha, online, April 2017.
11 Cultural Engineering, “Cultural Engineering: Our Mission”.
12 Interview with Rasha Al-Duwaisan, Dubai, March 2017.
13 Mirgani, “Introduction: Art and Cultural Production in the GCC”, p. 3.
14 Batt, Shabib, and Shabib (curators), Binary States, India-UAE: An Exhibition Celebrating Overlapping Elements in Emirati-Indian Cultures (2016).
15 The Hindu, “Exploring Ties between India, UAE”, 11 December 2016; Khaleej Times, “Exploring India-UAE Relationship Through Art”, 25 January 2017; Bundhun, “Kochi Exhibition Shows Rich History of Migration between the UAE and India”, The National, 21 February 2017.
16 Kochi Biennale Foundation website.
17 Ibid.
18 Mathew, Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade (2017); Deloche, “Roman Trade Routes in South India: Geographical and Technical Factors (1st Cent. BC–5th Cent. AD)”, Indian Journal of History of Science 45.1 (2010).
19 Subrahmanyam, Three Ways to be Alien: Travails and Encounters in the Early Modern World (2011), p. 24.
20 Butt, Shabib, and Shabib (curators), Binary States, India-UAE: An Exhibition Celebrating Overlapping Elements in Emirati-Indian Cultures.
21 Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (2000); Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (2006).
22 Zachariah and Rajan, Kerala’s Gulf Connection, 1998–2011: Economic and Social Impact of Migration (2012).
23 Bose, A Hundred Horizons (2006); Seccombe and Lawless, “Foreign Worker Dependence in the Gulf, and the International Oil Companies: 1910–50”, International Migration Review 20.3 (1986), pp. 548–574.
24 Zachariah, Mathew, and Rajan, Dynamics of Migration in Kerala: Dimensions, Differentials and Consequences (2003).
25 Rajan and Zachariah, “New Evidences from the Kerala Migration Survey 2018”, Economic and Political Weekly 55.4 (2020).
26 Zachariah and Rajan, Kerala’s Gulf Connection (2012).
27 “Malloo” is a colloquial (and sometimes derogatory) term for Malayalis used in India and the Gulf.
28 Vora, Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (2013).
29 Wakefield “Contemporary Art and Migrant Identity ‘Construction’ in the UAE and Qatar”; Kendall, “Always Let the Road Decide”.
30 Wakefield, “Contemporary Art and Migrant Identity ‘Construction’ in the UAE and Qatar”.
31 Vora, Impossible Citizens.
32 Interview with Rasha Al-Duwaisan, Dubai, March 2017.
33 Kochi Biennale Foundation website.
34 Mirgani, “Introduction: Art and Cultural Production in the GCC”.
35 Kochi-Muziris Biennale Youtube Channel, “Raul Zurita’s Sea of Pain”.
36 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, “Mission Statement”.
37 According to the last census data available (2011), Kerala’s population was 54.73% Hindu, 26.56% Muslim, and 18.38% Christian, in contrast to 79.8% Hindu, 14.2% Muslims, and 2% Christian at the national level [Govt of India, “Kerala Religion Census 2011”, Census 2011].
38 Green, “The Waves of Heterotopia: Towards a Vernacular Intellectual History of the Indian Ocean”, American Historical Review 123.3 (June 2018), pp. 846–874.
39 Aima, “Gulf Return”, in Batt, Shabib, and Shabib (curators), Binary States, India-UAE: An Exhibition Celebrating Overlapping Elements in Emirati-Indian Cultures (2016), p. 24.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Aurélie Varrel
Aurélie Varrel is a CNRS Senior Researcher (Geography) at the Centre for South Asian and Himalayan Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris; an Associate Researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry in India (where she was seconded during 2014–17); and a Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations in Paris, [email protected].