Arabic Letter Seen س
Arabic Letter Wow و
Arabic Letter Seen س, Arabic Letter Wow و
Performative Essay
43 minutes
2021
What does it mean to exist as an image, as something seen but never comprehended? What happens when a language is visible yet continually misread, or made illegible?
«Arabic Letter Seen س Arabic Letter Wow و» is a performative essay that investigates the relations between image, language, and power. Presenting a collection of found materials, Urok Shirhan speculates on practices that engage with Arabic through forms of Othering – as well as resistance – and explores the extent to which they amount to what she calls “the slow violence of images”.
This iteration of Arabic Letter Seen س Arabic Letter Wow و was tailor made for a live online performance as hosted by the Mosaic Rooms in London in September 2021.