The text was previously published in French in the exhibition catalog ARABOFUTURS: science-fiction et nouveaux imaginaires (April 23 to January 12, 2025) at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

The adaptation of science fiction codes by certain artists from the Arab geocultural space has enabled them to present innovative and imaginative visions of the future within an original representational regime in contemporary art. Whether through fantastic archaeology coupled with military SF in In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2015) by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, or through biotechnological anticipation bordering on absurd dystopia in Party on the CAPS (2018) by Meriem Bennani, certain works offer a rich and diverse perspective on the possible transformations of contemporary societies. The multiplication of artworks by Arab artists exploring the question of the future has been accompanied by a multitude of events in the form of writings, exhibitions, and cultural programs highlighting the phenomenon of “Arab futurisms,” a label with unstable contours, difficult to define, more or less autonomous, and oscillating between dreamed unity and forced grouping.

Taking as a starting point the exhibition ARABOFUTURS, this essay aims to retrace the presence of certain events that brought together varied bodies of work and discourse, all driven by a shared interest in contemporary Arab art and reflection on the future. We will here attempt to explore the genesis of these artistic events, to return to the key moments that catalyzed the emergence of these clusters of works, as well as the discourses that accompanied them. By tracing the thread of time backward, we will be better able to understand how these dynamics were born, how they evolved, and how they nourished the phenomenon of “Arab futurisms.” So, fasten your seatbelt and prepare for a journey through a four-dimensional art history!

HOW TO “EXPRESS…
ARAB FUTURISMS”

Our first journey takes us to Brussels four years ago, specifically between December 2020 and June 2021. It was at Bozar, the Centre for Fine Arts in the Belgian capital, that Arabfuturism was presented in collaboration with the Mahmoud Darwish Chair: a videographic polyptych accompanied by a session showcasing the performance. Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival was entirely reimagined in a hybrid format, attracting a worldwide audience. It spanned five dates and featured videos by Larissa Sansour and Monira Al Qadiri, and by Mariam Mekiwi and Bassem Yousri. There were also performances by Monira Al Qadiri and Malika Djardi. The link between this selection of works was justified by the fact that they explored “future beyond Arab uprisings and their de/illusions, beyond militarized territories and borders, beyond recent geopolitical narratives within on going civil protests,” but also because they “aim[ed] opening other narratives and critical thoughts on contemporary Middle east and beyond.” Focusing on the theme of “Arab futurisms,” this broad selection revolved around a reflection on science fiction resources to reimagine a notion of Arabness adaptable to the contexts of artistic creation in the early 21^st century. Thus it is to be understood as an artistic constellation advocating emancipation from various contemporary forms of violence and oppression through the use of science fiction.

This curatorial approach of bringing together different artists around a theme was not limited to the context of exhibitions and screenings. It is also observable in the press. Nevertheless, while the articles do not provide detailed analyses of the works or the notions invoked, they inscribe this phenomenon within the framework of an artistic movement. Such is the case of “Arabfuturism: How Arab artists are building the world of tomorrow” (2023), published by Farida Ali for Middle East Eye. The author does not hesitate to speak of a “cultural movement” aimed at “reimag[ining] the world of tomorrow,” mixing contemporary artworks, cinematic and literary works, and supporting her argument with historical facts. This article can be read as a mirror to the text “Afrofuturism and Arabfuturism: Reflections of a Present-day Diasporic Reader” (2016) by journalist Lama Suleiman for the Israeli magazine Tohu. There, Suleiman articulated Arabfuturism as a new form of Afrofuturism, one proposed by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones as a genre of Afro-diasporic cultural production and a framework for analysis and critique in various fields of Black technocultural studies. Also citing artworks and videos, such as those by Sophia Al-Maria and Larissa Sansour, Suleiman questioned the potential relevance of the concept to elaborate discourse on the cultural production of Arab diasporas, particularly Palestinian ones, with regard to the prospect of a future. Between these two articles, which crystallized the notion of Arabfuturism, Perwana Nazif published in the British magazine The Quietus the article “Arabfuturism: Science-Fiction & Alternate Realities in the Arab World” (2018), in which she stated that “Arabfuturism is a new and necessary artistic movement for countering the xenophobia and racism of Europe and America.”

Beyond the fact that she positions Arab futurisms within an artistic movement—as Farida Ali had done—Perwana Nazif also inserts them into a form of expression specific to the Arab diaspora—as Lama Suleiman had supposed—while adapting it to the various forms of racism present in the West. This article differs from the previous two in that the journalist met with Larissa Sansour and Sulaïman Majali to gather their views on the concept. Larissa Sansour clearly expressed her refusal to define, or even be associated with, the notion. As for Sulaïman Majali, who wrote Towards a Possible Manifesto, proposing Arabfuturism/s (Conversation A) (2015), he does not contest it, but emphasizes the importance of the impossibility of precisely defining Arab futurisms, asserting that this is precisely where its relevance lies: “Because defining is conquering and this is a way of pushing against that. Creating ambiguous versions of oneself. Right now, that’s the most subversive political act we can do.” I contributed to this discussion by adding that “the future of Arabfuturism therefore depends on this subversion,” words that concluded Arabfuturism(S) – Un Phénomène Passé À La Loupe, in ONORIENT (2019). Along similar lines, a review of Bozar’s programming published in La Boussole de la Gorgone (2021) remarked that “labeling has always been a colonial and conquering activity par excellence”, which may explain why “the instigators themselves blur the tracks.” Beyond this dialogical space established through these various writings, it is undeniable that the event organized by Bozar adopted a title that carried within it the weight of these exchanges and reflections. Yet it skillfully avoided the trap of categorization by refraining from offering a rigid definition, instead encouraging the invited artists and the public to forge their own conceptions.

THE STAKES OF “GULF FUTURISM”
BETWEEN APPRECIATION AND ASSIMILATION

Let us now move to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where numerous parallel initiatives have fostered forms of futurisms. If only a few are to be named, we could cite the biennial and international symposium “Tasmeem” in Doha in March 2022, themed “Radical Futures;” in January 2021, the launch of the Emirati Futurism Award by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation; the appointment of artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan as artistic director of the Museum of the Future in Dubai in 2020, as well as the collective exhibition Speculative Landscapes (2019), bringing together Emirati artists Areej Kaoud, Ayman Zedani, Jumairy, and Raja’a Khalid at New York University Abu Dhabi’s gallery (NYUAD), to represent imagined territories.

Though very different from one another, highlighting different actors and overseen by distinct institutions, these initiatives are, overall, the result of the reception of Gulf Futurism. In the Gulf context, the term “futurism” has been used by artists to define a concept related to the region’s modernist ideology and its consequences in the contemporary period, as well as within the context of its artistic globalization. Gulf Futurism as an aesthetic was officially introduced in an interview published in the British magazine Dazed & Confused in November 2012, in which Sophia Al-Maria and Fatima Al Qadiri were interviewed. This interview was accompanied by a series of images—presented in ARABOFUTURS—featuring the two artists in futuristic stagings. In another jointly written text in the same magazine in 2012, they explained that Gulf Futurism documents the Gulf’s futuristic ideology. The latter is characterized by a phenomenon of rapid growth where substantial revenues, mostly from hydrocarbon reserves, are directed toward ambitious urban projects, forward-looking technological advancements, and consumer goods. This sudden change was fully experienced by the two artists as children and teenagers in the 1980s and 1990s, in Doha for one and Kuwait City for the other. Their approach, and more specifically that of Sophia Al-Maria, was therefore to reassess, from 2008 to 2016, certain hegemonic narratives of modernity and the effects of retro culture by engaging in extended interactions in the Gulf on specific subjects through a variety of media (music, writing, video, and contemporary art), deliberately blurring the lines between reality and imagination, tangible science and science fiction, the realization of a utopia and a plunge into dystopia. It is precisely this intermediary position—what Sophia Al-Maria calls the “threshold”—that gives the notion its power, even its critical potential, aesthetically, politically and socially.

SCIENCE FICTION AS A LABORATORY FOR ARTISTIC AND CURATORIAL EXPERIMENTATION

Let us move to Beirut in 2015. In that year, British curator Rachel Dedman brought together the works of Jananne al-Ani, Ali Cherri, Fayçal Baghriche, Ala Ebtekar, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Assad Jradi, Mehreen Murtaza, and Larissa Sansour for an exhibition exploring the theme of space and SF. Entitled Space Between Our Fingers, the event was spread across five venues in Beirut (The Hangar UMAM, the Arab Image Foundation, Mansion, and the libraries of Ashkal Alwan and Dawawine), thus forming a kind of urban “constellation” situated in a zone of research and documentation where productions of Arab SF—in literature, cinema, and visual arts—were brought together for deep reflection.

In this exhibition, outer space appeared as a formidable tool for developing alternative pathways, not only to terrestrial spatial controversies but also for rethinking new historiographical strategies. In this vein, she sought to continue the reflection by inviting American-Lebanese screenwriter and director Darine Hotait, filmmaker and founder of the Lebanese comic collective Samandal Fadi Baqi (also known as The Fdz), and journalist Yazan al-Saadi to Ashkal Alwan in May 2015 to discuss the perspective of possibility that Arab science fiction might underpin. The discussion attempted to examine questions related to SF’s critical potential, its experimentation with the Arabic language, and the power of the genre’s marginal status in a regional context. Among the topics raised were various platforms and events, such as the Islam and Science Fiction blog (active between 2005 and 2022) by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad in the United States of America, and the Sindbad Sci-Fi platform (active between 2013 and 2018) run by Yasmin Khan in the United Kingdom.

When Khan founded it, her goal was to materialize her desire to research and disseminate this theme to a broad British public, contributing to establishing cultural and artistic links on a European scale. Its activities took shape through a variety of panels held at several festivals to promote the study of SF produced in North Africa and West and South Asia while also focusing on real technological developments in society. This British platform was a key player in the rediscovery of Arab SF, its attempts at definition, and its associated discourses. It was during one of these panels in 2014 that Larissa Sansour presented the early stages of In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain as a premiere. In 2017, Yasmin Khan notably oversaw a section devoted to Arab SF as part of the exhibition Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction, first presented at the Barbican in London before touring two other European cultural institutions (2017–2019).

The participants of the roundtable coordinated by Dedman unanimously expressed the need for such a platform in an Arab country, emphasizing interdisciplinarity so that no medium would be favored over another. This did not happen. In continuity with these two events and the reflections addressed, Dedman organized a second exhibition linked to SF and North Africa and West Asia entitled Halcyon, which took place in August 2016 as part of the Transart Triennale in Berlin. The aim of this event was to bring together a group of artists, writers, and filmmakers (Mirna Bamieh, Tom Bogaert, Francis Brady, Darine Hotait, Muhammad Khudayyir, Lynn Kodeih, Mehreen Murtaza, Lea Najjar, Arjuna Neuman, and Larissa Sansour) to explore video and text exclusively, the media of choice for SF.

SCATTERING “ARAB FUTURISMS”

This curatorial formulation follows in the continuity of our most recent journey through time, which takes us to the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands during the Impakt Festival. It was October 28, 2012 when, in a small room at the Kikker Theater, an independent curator by the name of Nat Muller gave a lecture called Arab Futurism. According to her, nostalgia had permeated the Arab world for far too long, casting its veil over contemporary artistic production. However, she had observed that during the first decade of the 2000s, young artists from the Arab world had appropriated elements and temporal structures of science fiction, thereby creating alternative realities and innovative social narratives. Their intention was to weave a critical narrative by evoking themes of territory, history, geopolitics, identity, colonization, occupation, nationhood, alienation, but also possibility, hope, and resistance. What distinguishes the work of these artists is their desire to represent futures. Indeed, most of their works are tinged with dystopia, with dark, oppressive, undesirable, or chaotic societies or worlds. However, glimmers of hope pierce, here and there, the representations they depict. Nat Muller illustrated her argument with analysis of four works. 2026 (2010), by Maha Maamoun, is a short film featuring a time traveler who recounts his vision of Egypt in the year 2026 and his desire for revolution. The videos A Space Exodus (2009) and Nation Estate (2012) present Larissa Sansour’s vision of the Palestinian future, through a space exodus in the first and a futuristic skyscraper housing all Palestinians vertically in the second. In their documentary The Lebanese Rocket Society (2012), Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige provide an overview of Lebanon’s past space exploration efforts. Yet, in the final part of the film, animation takes over and imagines what the city of Beirut might have become had the Lebanese space project not been interrupted by the Six-Day War (1967) and then the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Collectively, these films address the contexts of Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon projected into the near future in order to inject them into a referential illusion produced from pre-existing realities. They are very different from one another in terms of aesthetics and working methods; what unites them is their call for awareness of the future while inviting viewers to reflect.

This lecture appears to be the first time the term Arab Futurism was officially introduced. Ten years separate it from the Bozar program, which bears the same title. While the two terms appear identical, a typographic space sets them apart. Yet this particular character, which inserts an empty interval into the text, says much about its formulation. This can be explained by its frequency of use in English—a language known for its organic quality, constantly absorbing new words to create an endless stream of neologisms. If the first question raised here is whether the term Arab-futurism—with or without a space—should be accepted within the history of art, a second question concerns the language in which it is not used—Arabic—though its geography is clearly referenced in its name. Al-mustaqbal al-‘arabi does not, however, sound out of place. While artists such as Wafa Hourani, Larissa Sansour, Maha Maamoun, and Sophia Al-Maria were among the first to adapt science fiction within the register of contemporary art in the latter half of the 2000s, the subsequent arrival of this notion in English reveals the ambition of certain foreign cultural agents to assemble bodies of work in order to establish a space of differentiation. On what basis can this be determined? It could be interpreted as an attempt to deconstruct the notion of a monolithic Arab contemporary art. Indeed, this field progressively took shape at the beginning of the 21^st century, not only within the framework of the emergence of an art market in Europe and the Gulf but also in the context of a desire for dialogue between civilizations stemming from cultural diplomacy, and in the wake of the Arab revolutions and conflicts which profoundly reshaped regional geopolitics by creating new borders. These borders also carry an ideological dimension that has continually fueled a process of neo-Orientalist categorization, perpetuating a canon of otherness.

Should the reading of this art history thus begin with the study of the works themselves, or rather with the analysis of the discourses generated by the events that bring them together? A transnational and comparative approach would offer a perspective for rethinking the modes of perceiving the arts of the Arab geocultural space and their relevance to questions of the future. By placing this approach at the heart of institutional and artistic practices, it would become possible to deeply question the dynamics between knowledge and power. Contrary to Sulaïman Majali’s assertion that the strength of Arab futurisms lies in their indefinable nature, it seems rather to manifest in the recognition of the diversity of the individual voices involved—each contributing to the weaving of unique narratives, both in artistic creation and in its promotion by criticism and institutions. From this perspective, the exhibition ARABOFUTURS arrives at a timely moment. While it is one of the first events of its kind to take place in France, it also brought together three worlds of Arab futurisms: the artists, the institutional discourse, and the academy. Consequently, it opens new perspectives for discussing a phenomenon that will remain a subject of debate for some time to come.

“What if…” for Arab futurisms in art history? That is the question!

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