Sidelines

There exists a generation of woman who were, at one point, known artisans among their communities and through the fast paced modernization of Saudi Arabia and the active urbanization of Bedouins, have lost their craft and fallen into poverty. I aim to highlight the unique beauty of their craft but juxtapose it against the neglect that these women have suffered.

I am constantly drawn to the inclusion of crafts in my research and eventually in my artworks. This is because I have found that in the Arabian Peninsula, crafts are mainly designated as work done exclusively by women, not because it suited their nature or because an authority deemed it to be, it was because the social fabric she belonged to found a balance of duties that included women as equal contributors to the livelihood of the family or the larger tribe.

The fast pace of change brought on by oil-fueled modernity has, in one generation, made these jobs obsolete for women. Bedouins have been urbanized and Nagsh has all but stopped with the death of the last generation of great artisans who led large groups of women painters. Although their communities in the past allowed women and men to be equal earners and financial contributors, today it is the women who live in poverty or have become totally dependent on the earnings of the male members of their families. Although crafts, when they are functional and in demand, allow for a balance of opportunities among both genders, but when the system that supports this balance is altered by outside influences the first group of people that are negatively impacted are women.

The women I found in the villages were in desperate need of money and healthcare. Their craft had been taken over by foreign Asian workers and the new restrictions placed on their mobility and interaction with communities they belong to has practically placed them in a state of house arrest. They navigate these restrictions discretely by building small museums or galleries in their homes. They teach younger women in their tribes their skills in a final attempt at self- preservation, and they spend their days lobbying local charities for donations in return for selling their products in local tourist markets.

 

These pockets of women exist across Saudi Arabia with varying styles of crafts but identical stories of demise. Sidelines aims to highlight a generation of women who witnessed a societal transformation that in one generation has pushed them from the center to the sidelines of their communities.