This is it! In my thesis and new project I embark on a journey to discover the Kafiye of today. Starting from the assumption that the Kafiye is the strongest symbol to come out of the Arab world, I uncover the elements that have made it what it is today. By touching on issues like identity and appropriation, I make a powerful discovery filled with original research and never before exposed findings.

al-Kafiye: A Potent Symbol Uncovered is a project that traces back the origins and narrates the path of a design that is synonymous with one of the foremost global political issues, the Palestinian dilemma, and yet has managed to infiltrate high fashion and street wear all around the globe. Arab at its core, the Kafiye manages to be a multitude of things at the same time—traditional, ethnic, practical, stylish, trendy, scary, and revolutionary. Adopted by various fashion designers, commercialized and cheaply produced in China, one would expect the Kafiye of today to have lost any meaning or depth. That is far from the case, as this extraordinary item is still reinventing itself. Keeping the power of this symbol alive depends on the spread of information and the expansion of discourse.

Through a process of analysis and understanding, the story of the Kafiye is uncovered from Ancient Mesopotamia until contemporary times through a novel study of design, identity and material culture opening up the discourse on design in the Arab World. For further information, please log on to www.kafiyelab.org (online soon), a new organic platform, to learn more and promote the social design debate on the Arab World through interaction, dialogue and exchange.

I will be presenting my research findings in the first Design Criticism Conference - Crossing the Line, this Friday April 30, 2010 in NYC. More information here.

Everyone is invited! Please RSVP at dcrit@sva.com to attend. Hope to see you there.

The apartment was on the fourth floor of a walk-up in the residential 15eme district in Paris. An aged wood staircase creaked a melancholic off-tune melody conducted by my footsteps. Catching my breath at the arrival, I was faced with a narrow and dim passage leading to a worn down once white door.

I entered my friend’s place with anticipation. It was the first time I would visit him there. It was a charming one-bedroom, reeking of typical Parisian charm. What I directly felt was a sense of history, experience and style. He had a blend of rustic matured furniture that was left by the senior landlord mixed with typical amenities of our century: a flat screen TV, laptop, surround system, and an Ipod deck. On the walls were vintage rock and at posters from the 60s. The whole feel of the place was exactly as I would imagine a cozy apartment in Paris to be. Except, that it wasn’t quite so.

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Did you know that the way we eat has changed more over the past 50 years than the last 10000 years? That our modern supermarkets has on average 47000 products, many of which are made with the same ingredients, many from corn! The food industry is at its most powerful state with a “faster fatter better cheaper” ideology. Where do we stand in all of this dichotomy? The power lies in our hands every time we buy something.

Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner worked for over six years to help shed the light on all these issues and more in his enlightening documentary Food, Inc. If you haven’t seen it already, then you should definitely do so. I guarantee it will change your outlook on food, or at the minimum become a bit more aware.

I ordered something off the Victoria’s Secret website a couple of months back. That was it. I now live in fear. Every time I go down to my mailbox, put in the key and turn, I have one of their catalogs in there. I mean one if I am lucky – sometimes I get two or three! I can’t escape the mass targeting; I am now under their radar, and it seems for good. This is a recurring thing with many retailers; the list is so long that I wouldn’t know where to start.

As I complained about my suffering mailbox, several of my friends, male and female, had the same critiques. I systematically opened my mailbox and take out a bunch of catalogs, leaflets, and flyers and dump them directly in the recycling bin where all other tenants in the building had done the same. I kept wondering why do these companies even bother? At least online there is a junk folder to contain all the unwanted email bursts, but who is stopping the mail spam?

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Imagine a huge white canvas placed on an artist’s doorstep. With time, although initially virtually untouched, it starts to have some scratches, blemishes and faint traces on some parts. Yet, the artist does not touch or use this canvas for years, propping it up against the studio wall in view every single day. Until one morning when color strokes start to appear and inspiration has taken over. The artist is finally ready to paint. This is Beirut today, a five thousand year old multi-dimensional city that is like an open canvas. For years, street walls, bridge tunnels and scattered buildings were begging for life and had to be content with badly sprayed store signs and names of politicians more fit as toilet scribbles than street art. All of this started to change as color, social messages and designed graffiti was introduced. Today, the graffiti art scene is booming in a continuously tight and tense socio-political situation. What has finally triggered this change? And who were the protagonists?
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It was 1989. I was a 10-year-old Arab who had fled the Lebanese civil war with my family and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Not only was my name unfamiliar and virtually unpronounceable (Hala pronounced Ay-la in the south) by almost every American I interacted with, but I was the only Arab in my class, possibly even in my school. Students stared and pointed, and the brave sometimes ventured over to quench their curiosity with numerous questions about the far away land of Arabia. Do you ride on camels? What about magic carpets? What is the desert like? Have you ever seen rain, winter, snow? Do you own guns? Shoot people? Are you like a billionaire? I was shocked; not only had I never seen a camel in my life, I had just come from a country on the Mediterranean Sea with no sand or desert whatsoever! What were all these kids talking about?

Arab stereotypes have tainted American popular culture for more than a century. According to Dr. Jack Chahin, “Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. They are portrayed basically as sub-humans.” In his book Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Dr. Chahin goes on to explain that after looking at more than 1000 films with Arabs in them he could draw a dangerously consistent pattern of hateful Arab stereotypes that have been so normalized that most people don’t even notice them or see them anymore. He goes on to emphasize that a few images have been repeated over again and again, those of the Arab villain.
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I remember many years back in one of the Miss Lebanon competitions, one of the contestants who then went on to carry the title, was the biggest mockery in the country. She got asked a question of “What would you talk about Lebanon to those who do not know it internationally?” Her answer was something along the lines of “Lebanon is a beautiful country, we can go to the beach and ski in the same day, and we have… shopping!”

Lebanese identity under the umbrella of Arab identity (for marketing and financial benefits and purpose) has been a big dilemma ever since the creation of the country. Are we more connected to the West or the Arabs? Who do we identify with? Are we an open society or a traditional one? What is our society about, culture, values? How do we deal with a divided image internally let alone what we project on to the rest of the world? We do not want to be linked to any negative terrorist connotations yet part of our society follows and belongs to Hezbollah… You get the picture.

Today, I just stumbled upon someone who apparently seems to have solved these issues - a wannabe pop Lebanese phenomena called Jad Choueiry - oh no wait! He now spells his name Jad Shwery. He has just summed it up in his new “hit” Funky Arabs.

I don’t know where to start here but I will encourage you to see the song and video clip first - FUNKY ARABS

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“I am not a diva, I am THE diva!” Miss Piggy believed herself and we all did too. But she did not just make statements, she created a movement. Like many of my generation, I grew up with the concept of stardom equated to a pig. Only she was never just quite that. She was a genuine character living her life, dating a famous frog. What made her egocentric persona so lovable and well, real, was her sense of three dimensionality and her trueness to self. Over her years of fame, Miss Piggy has gathered, latched on and shared much wisdom about what’s wrong with everyone else and what’s right with her. It was all about her; “Moi, moi and moi” was personified in how she really stole the spotlight. She was the original It-Girl. (more…)

I have to say I just love the True Blood series on HBO. Even more than that, the intro to the show is probably the best thing I have seen on TV in ages, if ever! The song (I wanna do bad things with you by Jace Everett), imagery (feels like scenes taken with lomos) and edit are creepy and amazing. I can just watch it over and over again.

TRUE BLOOD INTRO

My mom grabbed my hand and explained that it was time to go down to the secret room again. My father followed us closely carrying my younger sister and brother, one child in each arm. We took the stairs from the fourth floor but did not stop on the ground, joining a flock migration of neighbors. Faintly in the background was a random un-orchestrated resonance of bangs accompanied by close-ups of explosions creating a habitual symphony of chaotic sounds that marked my war-torn city. We kept on going down for another two levels until we reached a hallway with a door that led to one room – the secret underground space.
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