Is it pornography
or is it culture?

A REVIE\V: Two Women in One
by Jamelie Hassan at Presentation
House, Feb. 1-March 17, Wed
Sun: 12-5, Thurs: 12-9.

ANADA IS largely a

land of dislocated

people. Native Cana-
dians, Ukrainians, Men-
nonites, Jews, Arabs, Asians,
Latin Americans, and even
the first wave of European
settlers endured the trauma
involved in the loss or par-
tial loss of cultural heritage.
The children of these groups
have not escaped the effects
of this trauma. Indeed, it
frequently manifests itself in
a dramatic cultural split in
their individual per-
sonalities.

jamelie Hassan, . Canadian.

born artist of Lebanese parents, is
one of these children. Her timely
exhibition, Two Women in Ore is
a testimony to the tension she feels
between being a citicen of North
America and thoroughly attuned
to the English speaking culture in
which she lives, and being a per-
son nurtured on Arabic traditions
and an Islamic sensibility. Hassan’s

ARCHIE
GRAHAM

arts critic

art af dislocation is complicated by
the fact that she is a woman who
has experienced the all-too-tre-
quent hostility towards her sex in
both of the curtural milieus from
which she has emerged.

Among the most powerful works
in a very strong show is a piece
titled Shame, one of three distinct
multimedia affsirs dealing with the
dehumanizing evfiects of cultural
and linguistic oppression involved
in institutionalized censorship.

We are invited to ponder the
hostile power of language in the
form of an “obscene” telephone
message recorded on a tape-loop
in an answering machine. two cul-
turally divergent but thematically
similar texts mounted side by side
on the wall, and two large painted
images of the stylized torso of a
mythical goddess, variations on a
stone figurine which lies partially
wrapped in brown paper on a
table.

ARTIST JAMELIE Hassan’s

“Shame”

Wednesday. February 13, 1991 — North Shore News - 27

IS THIS PORNi ss RAPHY

* . photo Doug Clark
from the Trilogy series,

presently on display at Presentation House Gallery

One of the teats is the transcript
of 2 conversation between the ar-
tist and a U.S. customs official
who, after opening the parcet con-
laining the tigurine asks, “‘Is this
pornography?”

The question, when enlarged by
the artist in bold golden lettering

abave the paintings, bellows out
its discriminatory implications.
The text of the Persian romance
does not have to be emboldened
to highlight its point: “Woman
does not keep her promises ...

See Art page 32

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