George Orwell. 1984. Room 101. Inside it lays your greatest fear or phobia, brainwashing to ensure your complete acceptance, ridding you of all doubt.

Room 101 exists today in a different context. As a group on Facebook, it contains raw talent and pure artistic outlet for a community of creatives. By baring their souls and exposing their creations, they are in a way dealing with judgment phobia (which is an artist’s basic great fear) of bringing their works to light. Tony Khoueiry, founder of the concept, loved the idea of a room used to change minds, regardless of the original methods. Anyone can upload pictures or scans of their work and share comments, thoughts and feedback.

Room 101 does change our minds. It makes us realize the amount of brilliant art hidden and buried in various places that never see the light. It touches us emotionally and inspires all of us. We can all forget the prejudices, expectations and prior knowledge and just purely experience passion.

Check out the room HERE (the work will move you I promise!)

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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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