Teta, which implies grandmother in Arabic, is usually each Egyptian baby’s first storyteller; the one who opens the door to a world the place the previous slips simply into the current, stretching time as if it had been one thing she may maintain.
In her wrinkled palms, the identical palms that when wrapped round ours because the gold bangles on her wrists chimed softly, she curated her personal museum of Egypt. Via her phrases and vivid imagery, she preserved items of heritage that by no means make it into digital archives, and tales held not in galleries, however in a grandmother’s coronary heart.
Over time, numerous attempts have been made to protect our heritage, from digital platforms and on-line museums to lectures, exhibitions, and fleeting bodily installations that showcase Egypt’s or the Arab world’s previous for a second in time. However as quickly as somebody leaves the room or scrolls previous the display, that fragment of reminiscence slips away once more, disappearing simply as rapidly because it appeared.
But a brand new era of Egyptian creatives, like Dutch-Egyptian illustrator and storyteller Naomi Attia, is rethinking how heritage can endure. Via her illustrated zine, Al Khorafa (Superstitions), now bought at native design studio Rizo Masr, she provides these traditions a life past fleeting exhibitions or a single scroll, permitting them to reside in somebody’s residence, tucked into baggage or suitcases, or resting on a espresso desk as a e-book to be revisited, cherished, and admired time and again.
Relatively than merely asking, “How can we defend our tradition?” Attia asks, “How can we return to the times when our grandmothers instructed us tales, passing them from one era to the subsequent?”
“Within the World South, we retold the identical tales time and again, they usually lived throughout generations. However now, we’ve misplaced that,” Attia tells Egyptian Streets. “What I really like a couple of zine is that folks can flip by it and all of a sudden keep in mind all these tales from their grandmother or grandfather.”
“And I hope that when somebody has it of their residence and mates or household come over, they’ll share it, sparking a dialog about their tradition. It creates a dialogue about id and heritage.”
Defending conventional storytelling
Many cultures throughout Africa and the Arab world carry deep-rooted oral storytelling traditions. But these tales aren’t random; they’re intentional practices meant to guard tradition and move data, historical past, and experiences from one era to the subsequent.
Storytelling isn’t nearly phrases; it lives within the voice, the motion of the palms, the gestures of the face, and the inventive imagery and metaphors that, even when not actually true, assist simplify and illuminate the story’s message.
As an alternative of merely studying a narrative aloud, the oral storyteller makes use of these tips and metaphors to make the listener really feel shocked, moved, or entertained, and, finally, to go away them wanting extra.
Rising up within the Netherlands, Attia’s bond with Egypt grew slowly, formed by recollections and a nostalgia for the storytelling traditions of her heritage. This connection grew to become the guts of her zine undertaking, which dives into the ‘superstitious’ tales shared by older Arab generations, tales that, she realized, are way more significant and layered than the label ‘superstition’ suggests.
At first, these tales felt ‘uncool’ and even embarrassing, particularly in a Western context that always dismisses them as outdated or backward. However over time, Attia got here to see them as a complicated type of storytelling, created with the intention to mirror the tradition’s personal distinctive method of speaking.
“After I first got here to the Netherlands, it wasn’t widespread to really feel happy with your personal tradition,” she explains. “There was this stress to mix in; you had been typically instructed to not point out that you just’re Muslim or the place you come from, otherwise you’d danger dealing with racist remarks. To be accepted, you discovered to cover elements of your self.”
However as a substitute of yielding to that stress, Attia selected the other path, embracing her tradition brazenly and proudly, even within the face of forces that search to erase her id. “I’m afraid that there are going to be generations which might be going to overlook their heritage, and I already see it taking place,” she displays.
To safeguard her ancestors’ heritage and conventional storytelling, she seemed to the methods Arabs create and interact with tradition, somewhat than the Western approaches that rely closely on lectures or museum exhibitions.
Tracing the layers behind superstitions
In Arab traditions, tradition lives in tales wealthy with metaphors and imagery, handed down and skilled in additional intimate, layered methods. But these traditions had been slowly erased from cultural reminiscence attributable to colonialism.
For hundreds of years, a lot of North Africa and the Arab world was subjected to colonial rule. Colonial powers imposed systems that framed native cultures as “backward” or “uncivilized,” erasing or devaluing traditions, languages, and practices.
Colonization didn’t simply dominate land and assets; it sought to rewrite cultural reminiscence, instructing generations to see their very own heritage as inferior.
“Within the time once we had been colonized as a area, there have been these camps, particularly the French arrange, which they referred to as ‘civilization camps.’ They put individuals in these camps to ‘civilize’ them. You see this all through the world with colonization; the identical strategies had been utilized in all places,” Attia explains.
“This doesn’t imply that we’ve to return in time or consider in every little thing from our previous, reminiscent of these superstitions. I don’t consider in them, nevertheless it’s nonetheless necessary to know them. They’re a chunk of our historical past,” she says. “Identical to how we will go to the pyramids and admire them without having to consider in them, superstitions are a part of the cultural reminiscence.”
Superstitions fall into that very same colonial mindset; the notion that as a result of we believed in them, we had been ‘backward,’ and wanted somebody to indicate us the “proper” method. This mind-set didn’t finish with colonial instances; it persists even in the present day.
“Inside these superstitions, you’ll be able to see a lot of our tradition and historical past. Take the straightforward superstition about having your sneakers the wrong way up. Students consider that as a result of many people come from desert cultures, sneakers left the wrong way up had been good hiding spots for snakes or scorpions,” Attia explains.
“So there’s direct nostalgia, but additionally a lesson embedded within the story.”
These superstitions do greater than present us how our ancestors lived; in addition they reveal how they communicated with each other by tales. Even when a superstition feels unreal or distant from our trendy world, it nonetheless displays the setting and experiences of the individuals who created it.
“Individuals keep in mind classes higher once they’re instructed as tales, particularly kids. You don’t simply say, ‘don’t put your sneakers the wrong way up.’ You construct a narrative round it,” she provides.
“Lots of these superstitions had been cautionary, not meant to be taken actually. However they train, they protect reminiscence, they usually join us to the best way our ancestors lived, thought, and communicated with the world round them.”
Shaping a brand new Arab aesthetic
Arab aesthetics are sometimes diminished to calligraphy, however in the present day, younger illustrators like Attia are pushing far past that. They’re reclaiming bodily options, decolonizing the best way Arab our bodies and visuals are represented, and shaping a visible language that’s totally their very own.
Attia’s fascination with archival materials shapes her strategy to trendy Arab aesthetics, drawing inspiration from on a regular basis objects, reminiscent of schoolbooks, tickets, and posters, which formed how generations noticed themselves.
Primarily, her illustrations grow to be an act of remembering and retrieving misplaced visible languages to encourage new ones.
“Not too long ago, I went to Egypt, and I discovered this paperwork archive. They’d posters, previous tickets, books, and a few academic books,” she says. “What I actually appreciated about these is that the format may be very participating. Should you simply have one thing with solely textual content, you are inclined to lose individuals. However when it’s damaged up by illustrations, your eye has various things to deal with.”
For Attia, these archives aren’t about nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. She sees them as maps towards reclaiming a visible language that feels rooted, distinct, and fully our personal; an intentional stance towards a world mainstream tradition that may typically really feel too acquainted and predictable.
One other method she resists that world visible homogeneity is by reshaping how we perceive magnificence, notably Arab and African magnificence beliefs. Conscious that magnificence requirements are fashioned by repetition and publicity, she makes use of illustration to slowly rewire these inherited perceptions, permitting viewers to rethink what they’ve been conditioned to see as ‘regular’.
“Within the Arab world, particularly for girls with coloured eyes or straight hair, we name them ‘coloured eyes’ they usually get a variety of compliments,” she says. “Rising up, individuals would inform me, ‘You’re so fairly as a result of you may have straight hair,’ and it was all the time Western magnificence requirements.”
“So in my illustrations, on function, I draw black and brown eyes, as a result of there isn’t sufficient illustration of these options. I draw distinguished noses, completely different textured hair, unibrows, even a bit mustache hair,” Attia provides.
Via her illustrations, she celebrates the options many had been as soon as taught to cover, shifting the visible tradition in order that what was as soon as marginalized turns into abnormal, recognizable, and even aspirational.
“Generally you want to pull it within the full different path,” she says. “The extra you expose individuals to one thing, the extra they begin seeing it as cool.”