Exhibit looks at
Stories and
survival
By Julie Powell
Correspondent
|
Seldom is storytelling a
matter of life and death. But for Shahrazad, the wife
of the dreadful Sultan Schahriar and heroine of ''The
Arabian Nights,'' the ability to spin a cliffhanger kept her alive.
And for artists Susanne Slavick and
Andrew Ellis Johnson, Shahrazad serves as an inspiration
for their provocative art installation, ''One Night or a Thousand Others,''
currently on display at the Lamar Dodd School of Art's Main Gallery. The work
uses Shahrazad and her survival of the Sultan as a
critique of
According to the tales of the Arabian Nights, the Sultan Schahriar, embittered by the betrayal of his first wife,
began a savage campaign of revenge on women. After executing his adulterous
wife, he married a new woman each night and promptly put her to death the next
morning to ensure he would never again be betrayed. Shahrazad,
the daughter of the Sultan's vizier, devised a plan to end the bloodbath. She
married the Sultan and, as part of a prearranged scheme, on her wedding night
began telling a tale of adventure that lasted through the night. When morning came and the story was not over, the Sultan decided to
let his wife live to finish the story the next night. A thousand and one
nights and three children later, the Sultan decided his wife was faithful and
revoked her death sentence.
Slavick says Shahrazad's
story of survival is symbolic.
''For me, she represents those who must go through
contortions, creative or otherwise, to stay alive,'' says Slavick,
head of the
''(Shahrazad's)
existence depends on maintaining the pleasure of the sultan. I think this is an
apt metaphor for the developing countries' relation to the world's
superpowers,'' Slavick continues, of the way the work
also reflects
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'One Night or a Thousand Others' When: Through Dec. 19; Artists lecture Where: Cost: Free Call: (706) 542-1511 |
The installation in part features Johnson's
row of severed plaster-cast heads of young women of Middle Eastern descent,
peering from pillows of black sand, paired with Slavick's
series of paintings, titled ''Heads Will Roll.'' The two artists explore the
psyche of the victims - the wives of the Sultan.
''The beheaded in my paintings may be dead, but there is a
suggestion of persistence as well in the blossoming masses emanating from the
headdresses, whether it's a cellular proliferation or something else,'' Slavick says of the rendering of the work.
But, she adds, in the end, violence breeds more violence -
''the monsters of our own creation.''
''... Injustice only perpetrates greater violence,'' she notes,
''gives birth to more enemies. Are we really diminishing terrorism with our
policies or are we stoking the fire for an even more fervent and widespread
retaliation?'' she asks of tactics used by the U.S.
Slavick points to many historical
precedents as well as the current situation in Iraq as instances where
storytelling has been used as means of survival - whether of self-image or of
the lives of others.
''I think of this storytelling as both a defense and an
aggression. ... The American public succumbs ... to the seduction of
superficial and outright deceptive rationales for our foreign policy - usually
coated in a false sentimentality about freedom and the spread of democracy,'' Slavick notes, adding the truth is, ''we are often
motivated by economic interests that sustain our disproportionate wealth and
consumption of world resources.''
''We tell these stories to ourselves to justify our
selfishness,'' Slavick says. ''The oppressed are
coerced to tell us what we want to hear or behave the way we desire as their
survival depends on it.''
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