The unconventional engineer abdulrahman KATANANI profile Refugee camps are home to displaced people, some of whom resort to crime, while others turn to hope. In Beirut’s Sabra camp, Myrna Ayad meets a determined man whose buoyant art has become his saving grace. T he drone of generators, the cries of playing children and a staccato of car horns make their way into the two-by-three-metre studio and home of Abdulrahman Katanani. “I’m sorry about the noise,” he says politely, noticing my eyes glance occasionally towards the open door. His apology confirms the reality that there is never a moment of silence in Sabra – the constant hum of varied sounds shrouds this Palestinian refugee camp, augmenting the tightness of the air and the crowded space which pervade everyday life here. There are several constants in Sabra – the power cuts are frequent and spontaneous; ‘breathing space’ is an impossibility; children run barefoot and play with toy Kalashnikovs; walls are adorned with graffiti and posters of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock; and the smell of gasoline is ever-present. Astonish- ingly, the camp’s fruit and vegetable vendors are highly sought-after in Beirut for their guaranteed fresh produce. It is the metaphors behind these ‘normalities’ that work their way into Katanani’s practice – themes of a never-visited homeland, play, aspirations and most of all, hope. Gangster’s Paradise Katanani and I had walked down a street in Sabra which leads to Gaza Building, where he lives and works and where he was born in 1983 (then Gaza Hospital), exactly a year after the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut. His parents had lived in the Shatila camp then, and moved several times. “It’s the story of every Palestinian’s life,” he says matter-of-factly, “we’ve never settled, “I’ve been brought up to think of the glass as half full.” 124 Opening spread: An installation view of Sans Addresse at the artist’s solo show Without Address at the Institut Français du Liban in Beirut. 2012. Mixed media. Variable dimensions. This page: Above: Hula Hoop. 2011. Mixed media. 122 x 120 cm. Below: Untitled. 2011. Mixed media. 123 x 124 cm. 125 Above: Six Days and We we’re always on the move, always relocating 20 years old that his father allowed him to return Will Be Back Inshallah. 2011. Mixed media. and never really own anything. I don’t even home after sunset, all too aware of the hostilities 200 x 450 cm. own the place I’m living in.” Although the UN- in the camp and the allure of gangs and political Facing page: Untitled. classified genocide was committed by the Leba- parties for young men. 2011. Mixed media. 100 x 100 cm. nese Christian Phalangist militia, the camps had We sit in his studio-cum-home and his been surrounded by Israeli Defence Forces, and mother suddenly walks in with a tray of freshly Katanani grew up with the belief that “it was baked cookies which she had made “for the only the Israelis who had committed this crime; journalist coming from abroad”. Like all the that they are our enemies, not anyone else.” faces I’d seen in Sabra, hers was friendly and The eldest of eight children, Katanani spent his warm. Stacked against the wall on my right is childhood in the shadow of this atrocity, yet the Katanani’s artistic paraphernalia – sheets of opiate of time has not tainted him nor his family corrugated iron, a bucket filled with bottle-caps, with any bitterness or despair. “I’ve been brought slabs of wood, a collection of multi-sized pipes up to think of the glass as half full,” he admits. and rolls of barbed wire, hessian cloth and a It’s an ironic actuality to consider: this man couple of keffiyehs (traditional headdress). was sheltered within a shelter. The protective Assorted garments hang from a makeshift rack; environment which he was shielded by is largely I later learn that Katanani had acquired some thanks to his parents, who advocated education of these from second-hand stores in Sabra and “and made us believe it was more important others were willingly donated by fellow refu- than clothing or food”. They even went so far as gees who became aware of his growing fame as to screen their children’s friends – “we weren’t an artist. “When I won the prize at the Sursock allowed to speak with those who weren’t Museum on the occasion of their Salon enrolled at school, who smoked and who had d’Automne in 2008, people started giving me bad reputations.” It was only when Katanani was their clothes to use in my artworks,” he grins; 126 “One man gave me his young son’s shoes!” That these people made such contributions for the sake of associating themselves “It might be a sad with some form of distinction, speaks volumes about their desire to be recognised and their awareness of their status environment which my as outcasts (Palestinian refugees are barred from citizenship). Katanani is conscious of this and is quick to acknowledge that subjects reflect, but they one of his impetuses as an artist is “to tell the world that we, as Palestinians living in the camps, are not terrorists, murderers or show how to overcome suicide bombers. We’re educated and we have dreams too.” the difficulties of living in Thinking Out of the Box such an environment.” Corrugated iron may be a common fixture for all camp residents but Katanani’s relationship with it is rooted in his time spent at his father’s carpentry workshop and his mastery of “a poor man’s material”. There, he learned how to cut it, as- semble it on roofs (sometimes indoors if there were leakages) and in the absence of nails, resorted to bottle-caps as “solid binding devices”. Other stints included labour at a metalsmith, marble and stone worker and vegetable vendor. “I once asked my mother what I needed to study to become a vegetable vendor,” he laughs, “and she said I’d have to finish university to become one.” As a child, Katanani would draw and often include the Palestinian flag in his sketches. By the time he was in his early teens and enrolled at a school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, he began drawing caricatures inspired by Naji Al-Ali. Katanani’s intrigue with the Palestinian political cartoonist led him to research other intellectuals, even stumbling on a neglected library in Sabra. “Merchants in the camp sell old newspapers by the kilogramme for people to sit on. I’d buy them to read and find caricatures to cut out,” he says. Where other boys his age befriended armed men who huddled in corners and mulled over freedom fighter conquests, Katanani drew on the camp’s walls and even showed his cari- catures through exhibitions in Paris and Kuala Lumpur. “I’d get lost drawing and was adamant about displaying my beliefs against corruption,” he says. “I was encouraged when I felt that my drawing had affected someone, even disturbed them, and making an impact is what I’ve always sought to do.” Encour- agement also came from his parents, who, while promoting fields such as engineering or medicine, supported their son’s decision to pursue the arts. One could argue that Katanani is an engineer, albeit in an unconventional sense. 127 profile In 2003, he enrolled at the Lebanese Uni- to this project which Katanani factored into its versity’s Institute of Fine Arts – a four-year creation: first, he toyed with the physical com- programme which, he says was characterised parison between the “spacious” Institute and by a lack of artistic freedom. Yet its conclusion the “tightness” of Sabra – “and how I was split marked the beginning of Katanani’s career. The between these two worlds in which I’ve spent theme for the final year project was open and so much time”; and second, he wanted to so Katanani put aside all of his art books “and all portray his fellow refugees, “in a way for the schools of artistic thought” and walked through piece to carry their souls and their suffering Sabra in search of inspiration, or rather “in search but in no way reflect distress, but rather defi- of things I may have taken for granted”. And ance.” Katanani’s initial experimentations were there, he saw “as though for the first time” the innocent. When he placed pipes on the top items piled on my right. There were two themes part of the canvas, the chains grasping artistic liberty at university were freed: he realised he “Change can be more effective didn’t have to adhere to a square canvas at all. “In fact, there is barely anything that is square in with the youth, provided they’re shape at the camp,” he says, “and I continued to add other materials and the work began to look taught to think of possibilities.” ‘engineered to imperfection’ – exactly what I wanted.” Within the two years after his graduation in 2007, Katanani had participat- ed in shows at the Sursock Museum in Beirut and caught the eye of the indefatigable Saleh Barakat of Agial Art Gallery. “Abdulrahman lives in a very hostile place,” says Barakat, “but he’s not saying ‘I live in the ghetto’, he’s saying ‘despite living in the ghetto, I’m going to persevere’.” Mental Evocations Indeed, perseverance is a core facet of Katanani’s practice. What about sadness then, I ask? “I don’t think my works are sad and I don’t want there to be any sadness in them either,” he says. “It might be a sad environment which my subjects re- flect, but they show how to overcome the dif- ficulties of living in such an environment.” Hula Hoop depicts a young girl with a hula hoop made of barbed wire, a material which warns against trespassing and is synonymous with barriers. In the artwork, however, the barbed wire no longer carries such synonyms; its definition has been altered to mean something entirely different. Such is the case with an untitled work featur- ing a man bedecked in a keffiyeh and playing with prayer beads made of barbed wire. While, Katanani flips the meaning – from something originally intended to be spiritual into some- 128 profile thing which evokes anxiety – he also grants the children. He was scolded by the “camp’s godfa- Facing page: Untitled. 2011. Mixed media. 250 x 250 cm. man an identity through the headdress. thers” for “changing Sabra’s look and threaten- This page: Untitled. 2011. This is often where one questions the notion ing the amount of donations by benefactors Mixed media. 64 x 140 cm. of anonymity, or rather, the unnamed and who would then realise that life was good in All images courtesy Agial Art unidentified in Katanani’s artworks. The figures the camp.” This experience and others have not Gallery, Beirut. do not have facial characteristics – they could fazed Katanani in the slightest. He has just com- be anybody, any refugee anywhere in the world, pleted a Master’s in Fine Arts from the Lebanese which at once makes Katanani’s work universally University and has recently been commissioned applicable to the plight of the displaced, but by the Institut Français du Liban in Beirut, for also blurs the lines between abstraction and which he has created a replica of the camp. figuration. Who is to say that the five children “It is amazing how I have never been to Pales- playing with a makeshift trampoline made of tine and neither has my father, but this hope and metal wire mesh are Palestinian refugees? The love for our land is passed down from genera- important aspect to consider is that they play, as tion to generation,” admits Katanani; “It is equally all children do. And it is in children that Katanani amazing how this legacy, which is really just an places much hope for change. “When children idea, is held onto by people who have never play, they do so regardless of where they are; it seen this land and don’t know what belonging is an act of joy and they’re not considering their to a land means.” The only land that Katanani surroundings as they hopscotch, hula hoop or has ever known was Sabra, and it was a startling play catch,” he explains. “Change can be more moment when, at a young age, he realised that effective with the youth, provided they’re the rest of the world didn’t look like the camp. “I taught to think of possibilities.” Such an outlook was and have always been convinced that the helps explain the crowds of children who smiled only way to get out of this sphere is through and waved to Katanani as we walked to Gaza creativity,” he says. For Katanani, it’s always been Building. It also helps explain his camp initiative a case of mind over matter. in 2004, when he sought to beautify Sabra’s walls with paintings done by himself and the camp’s For more information visit www.agialart.com 129
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