VISUAL NARRATIVE: FORMLESS
The concept of identity being formed through experience is not unheard of, but when the word 'Arab' is brought into the picture, identity becomes a bit more complex, and loaded with social, religious and political connotations, to name a few, thus making representations of Arab identity one of the more difficult challenges for anyone who tries to tackle the subject. Edward Said spoke of representations of the 'Orient' saying that " The exteriority of the representation is always governed by some version of the truism that if the Orient could represent itself, it would; since it cannot, the representation does the job, for the west, and … for the poor Orient".
In attempt to investigate one form of visual representation of the above, and through a study of Arabic comic art, and specifically Arabic comic books' superheroes, it became apparent that many of the attempts to piece together a character defined as an 'Arab' superhero had leaned towards a loss of identity. The characters were stripped from any indicators of religion, culture, ethnicity, and in some cases, even physical features that would make them relatable to the Arab world, turning the character into a blank canvas, ready to reflect any image projected onto it.
The idea of identity being malleable to that extent is what interests me, leaving aside the generic definitions of identity, and possibly looking at it from another view, one that allows it to become an interactive definition.
"Formless: Progressions of a Hybrid Identity" is a publication involving a graphic dialogue between three different entities: a character, an environment, and a context. The progression takes place visually as they develop on their own, internally, and then start to interact causing themselves and the 'other' to develop both internally and externally. As the dialogue unfolds, the entities evolve through phases involving birth, interaction, awakening, lack, mimicry, exchange, empowerment, moving along to a state by which each of their identities is defined, that being a state of ever-changing hybridity. This brings about the concept of the 'formlessness' of a certain entity's identity at any point in time, negating the need and the struggle for defining oneself by place, time, context or any generically imposed terms involving a person or place's origins.