IN ENGLISH

TWO BY TWO BY MISERY

in
 

PART 1 / WHAT IS A BEDROOM

A bedroom is a room with enough space for a bed, a closet, a table, and a chair; or any equivalent pieces of furniture respective of the occupant’s culture and lifestyle. These pieces must be comfortably distanced so as to not impede the occupant’s in-room circulation. A bedroom has an operable window with natural lighting and ventilation. Any room not satisfying these basic requirements is not a bedroom, regardless of whether it’s being used as a bedroom or not.

PART 2 / WHAT IS A BATHROOM

A bathroom is a room with enough space for a toilet, a sink, and bathing space; or any equivalent bathroom fixtures respective of the user’s culture and lifestyle. These fixtures must be comfortably distanced so as to not impede the occupant’s in-room circulation. Any room not satisfying these basic requirements  is not a bathroom, regardless of whether it’s being used as a bathroom or not.

PART 3 / AN ARCHITECTURAL RIGHT

Every human being has the right to a bedroom and a bathroom. They can be shared or personal, owned or rented, and they can be creatively adjusted to fit an infinite of possible contexts, but they must be provided without compromising any of their basic components.

PART 4 / AN ARCHITECTURAL CRIME

To purposefully deprive a human being of their right to a bedroom and a bathroom, when there is ample opportunity to provide this right is a crime. Apathy, laziness, cost cutting, profit maximization, or ignorance of the importance of providing the aforementioned architectural right is not an excuse for committing this architectural crime. Any architect who helps his client commit this crime has equally committed the crime, and is a traitor to the profession.

PART 5 / A LETTER TO A CRIMINAL ARCHITECT

Dear Architect,

  • Even though we have never met, and I don’t know your name or how you look like… I still hate you.

  • This is because I don’t need to meet you to know who you are. This room that I live in, a room in a building that you designed, tells me all I need to know about who you are.

  • Let me tell you what I think about this room that you have designed for me… I hate it.

  • It’s too small, and too dark. The air is still and stale. There’s no window. I can’t tell day from night.

  • There’s not even space to permanently fit my tiny bed. I have to fold it in the morning to make space for the ironing board. My closet is too shallow to fit anything other than tightly folded clothes.

  • And that’s it. There is no space for anything else.

  • Is this all you think I need? What if I wanted to read a book? Or write in my notebook? What if I bought something slightly bigger than what your tiny closet can hold, where do you propose I put it? What if I wanted to stretch both my arms at the same time without hitting the walls? Is that too much?

  • A bed is for lying down, but what if I didn’t want to lie down? What if I wanted to sit in my room? There’s no chair, nor any space to place a chair. The room is even too small for an imaginary chair. I can stand in my room. I can lie down in my room. But I can’t sit. Do you have something against me sitting? Why can’t I sit?

  • Actually there is one place I can sit, the toilet seat in my bathroom. But I try to avoid that as much as possible. My bathroom is smaller, darker and damper than my room.

  • I hate my bathroom too.

  • But I don’t only hate you because you have decided to give me a bedroom and a bathroom that I hate. I hate you more because the rest of the apartment is actually quite beautiful.

  • This tells me that you are not an incompetent architect, but a lazy and cruel architect. You gave me this room even though you could have done better. You just decided not to.

  • The bedroom next to mine is currently empty. It has a big window overlooking the sea. It has its own bathroom too. The flooring is lovely dark wood, and the walls are covered with soft vegetal patterns. It’s being kept empty because they’re expecting the baby to arrive anytime now. I love that room.

  • As I said, even though we have never met, I know you.

  • I know that you don’t care about me.

  • I know that you think I’m not important enough for you to put some effort into designing something nice for me.

  • You have built my current misery from blocks and concrete.

  • And because of that dear architect, and even though I have never met you… I hate you,

PART 6 / A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A CLIENT AND A CRIMINAL ARCHITECT

Client: “The kitchen seems a bit small, can you make it a little bit bigger.”

Architect: “I made the kitchen as large as possible given the available space; the only way to make it bigger is to take some space from one of the rooms around it. And that is not advisable.”

Client: “What if you took a meter from the maid’s room?”

Architect: “That might work; I’ll give it a try.”

PART 7 / A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A CLIENT AND A GOOD ARCHITECT

Client: “The kitchen seems a bit small, can you make it a little bit bigger.”

Architect: “I made the kitchen as large as possible given the available space; the only way to make it bigger is to take some space from one of the rooms around it. And that is not advisable.”

Client: “What if you took a meter from the maid’s room?”

Architect: “That won’t work, the maid’s bedroom would become too small.”

Client: “I don’t mind her bedroom becoming a bit smaller, I think it’s currently too big anyway.”

Architect: “The extra meter that will be added to the kitchen won’t have a large effect on the room, since it’s already a spacious room; while removing this meter from the maid’s bedroom will substantially decrease its livability. I say we keep things as they are, or maybe I can take the extra meter from the living room.”

Client: “Are you serious?! You want to make the living room smaller? Tenants choose which apartment to rent sometimes solely based on the size of the living room, and definitely not on the size of the maid’s room.”

Architect: “Regardless of whether that’s true or not, making the maid’s bedroom smaller than what it currently is would make it uncomfortable for human occupation, therefore architecturally unacceptable.”

Client: “I don’t care, make it smaller.”

Architect: “I can’t do that.”

Client: “This is not a request, it’s an order. Do it or I’ll find someone who will!”

Architect: “I still can’t do it.”

Client: “You’re fired!”

PART 8 / END

The ending of any text is the final surrender of the writer, an acceptance that his words will now be in the hands of others, and that he has no more control over their future. This is the ending of this text, and my final surrender. I am full of hope and full of doubt.

 

 

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TEXT: ALI AL YOUSIFI

LINGUA FRANCA #1: ELLIPSES

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Writing in his book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes describes a photograph as the reflection of the photographer an inherent imposing of the photographer’s own dreams, fears, and obsessions into celluloid film (or pixels). Photographing such a seemingly bleak landscape such as Kuwait’s can be difficult, given the country’s oversaturation of skyscrapers and its inherent societal resistance towards being photographed. Being a conservative society, it is also especially difficult to photograph women without asking their permission first. Yet, the beauty of Kuwait lies within its little idiosyncrasies, its overlooked details often overshadowed by its modern razzmatazz; the banal. The exploration of everyday banality, the quotidian, is a fascinating theme to explore through photography. Stories are hidden deep within aged leather shoes and ratted handbags. The reflection of pain through the mundanity of everyday life is a theme that enthrals a person the more they try to delve in it; as Barthes writes, an obsession imposed on a photograph. The theme is further amplified through the motif of loneliness. I, perhaps unconsciously, try to impose scenes of loneliness through the framing of the subjects within the photograph and the usage of black and white film. The monochromatic nature of BW film enhances the feeling of solitude, the contrast of shadows and highlights encapsulates the dichotomy of coming to terms with pain and solitude while trying to live a normal life.

Kuwait is a nation of migrants. Every person living in Kuwait can trace back their roots elsewhere (even though some won’t admit it). Cosmopolitanism has been the driving force behind Kuwaiti culture since its inception in the 18th century. This multi-ethnic melting pot (as cliché as this term can be) is reflected in its music, cuisine and art: ranging from Africa, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Gulf region. That said, Kuwait’s mistreatment of migrant and foreign workers is no secret. It joins ranks with other oil-rich Gulf states in its systematic mistreatment of migrants, demonstrating appalling human rights abuses through withholding of salaries from employers and institutional racism from the government.

For the most part, migrant workers built Kuwait’s infrastructure, a reflection of the aforementioned cosmopolitanism. Workers from Southeast and Far East Asia and elsewhere from the Middle East constitute about 68% of the population. The irony lies within the majority of the non-Kuwaiti population and the nature of mistreatment they receive. Migrant workers serve as the foundation of Kuwaiti society; a society that, alongside Kuwaiti citizens, would not have come to existence without their help. Their sweat, tears and blood helped build Kuwait to what it is today. Yet we, as a Kuwaiti society, often overlook them. We see them as nothing more than a set of hands doing a job, devoid of humanity. We owe migrant workers everything for helping us build our country. 

For this photoset, I went to the souq (Market) of Mubarkiya, the oldest known souq in Kuwait, predating the rapid urbanisation that swept the country during the 50’s after the discovery of oil. Within the old brick and concrete roads of the souq lie the smells of old Kuwait: fishmongers, butchers, fruit sellers and fabric shops, right in the heart of Kuwait’s booming downtown financial district. This juxtaposition of history is also reflected through market goers; selfie sticks and Segway scooters alongside old dates sellers and incense merchants; fathers taking their children to the old coffee shops to drink tea and tell the stories their fathers told them; families eating kebabs and shawermas in the same restaurant they’ve been going to for the past 30 years. The character of the souq is reflected upon the various nationalities of merchants there: Indian Bohra gold sellers, Iraqi and Iranian fruit and food sellers, Egyptian butchers, and Syrian fabric sellers. Mubarkiya is a microcosm of Kuwait’s cosmopolitan history.

My fascination with photographing the banal led me to conversations and photos with the various nationalities that inhibit the souq. A Syrian fabric shop owner, the one who is posing with a cigarette in his mouth, came to Kuwait at a young age and started working with other Syrians in the business. He still has family back in Syria and, as he looked away (perhaps out of respect) and inhaled his cigarette, told me about his attempts at applying for a visa for his nephew in order to get him out of Aleppo. His pain was tangible, it almost had a taste of stale cigarettes chain-smoked to help him cope. A pain reflected by his blackened out face; a face succumbing to hopelessness, numbness. The unfortunate banality of his pain contrasted by his sense of humour when he told me he chooses to dress smart because no one would buy from a messy looking merchant. He wore a bright patterned maroon tie with a beige suit, his hair parted sideways showing off his baldness. That is the perpetual state of Arab manic depression: tremendous pain coupled with bouts of humour and happiness.

In another photo an Indian tent maker told me about his mistreatment by his employers. He would sleep in a small caravan in the yard and share an outdoor shower with some other 20 odd workers. He is still making his tents and he is still hoping of a better life. His co-workers saw my camera and called me over to take his photo, they were joking about how uptight he was. He gave a small, shy smile and agreed to get his picture taken. When I raised my camera, his face changed. The shy smiled became a stoic look. His face was in defiance to how he is being treated; a testament of his will, resilience. He didn’t blink, nor change his face after I took his photo four times. He had the uncanny will to live, to thrive.

These stories are not unique; they are present in every single migrant working in Kuwait. Stories of pain coupled by an unthinkable willingness to live and survive, and most of all thrive. These stories are deeply rooted within the banality of migrant life in Kuwait. A quotidian nature of accepting pain and living through it.  

 

 

ROSARY MEN // SHAHD FADLALMOULA

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Introduce me to a God
That does not love looking at the bare ankles of angry men
More than he does
The sharp turns between a woman's waist and her thighs

Introduce me to a God
That is not more disturbed by the sound of art
Echoing out of a guitar's belly
Than he is by the pyramid of skeletons building up on Syrian soil

Introduce me to the one
That loves loaded metaphors and coffee stained lips so much,
He wrote 604 pages of perfected poetry...
To carress peace into the frail thing behind your ribcage

Dear Rosary Men, 
Pace your bead-strokes and murmurs to the speed of your heartbeats
And pour me a cup of religion
That does not taste like the metallic flavor
Of bloodlust and dynamite hymns of Haram
Chanted in trance, over and over and over again...

Dear Rosary Men,
Stop telling me to carry you around my wrists
And chant your names like grace for blessings.
When you are nothing more than strung beads
Made of woodwork carved out of the tree
That was Adam and Eve's first undoing.

Echo of a Shadow // Hessa Albanafasaj & MAHA

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In an eastern land where bronze sands roll like waves and is home of the brave. Where horses prance in a rhythmic pace. Where sun shines with glory and grace. There you can hear voices of mothers, telling tales of the evil that smother. They speak of an inhuman fay, in night’s veil it killed all those who stray.

Her shadow-like figure swayed in the darkness, as she walked towards the village in silence. She reached the valley where little huts' lamps glowed. Her eyes traveled from door to door as she spied into the windows of every home. In one of the houses, she heard a little boy crying defiantly “I won’t sleep, I won’t obey”. The mother glared at her young boy, and told him “Fine, but you can’t avoid the evil that is Umm Al Duwais”. The mother wrapped the boy in her arms, and told of a tale from a legend of old. She spoke of a beautiful creature that was very bold.

“There are many tales of late, that spoke of this devil and her angel face. She walked the valley wearing Arabian gold that shone. Her anklets rang. Her bracelets banged. The silk dress covered her dreadful truth. She had donkey’s foot. Her hands were made of sharp sickles, weapons to behead her victims. She was the mother of sickles Umm Al Duwais was her local name. The name that runs shivers through veins. Her perfume scent traveled the wilderness, to seduce a man that strayed, from home he came faraway”.

The mother gazed into her boy’s eyes. The eyes so reminiscent of his father’s, it almost brought her to her knees in grief and sighs. She journeyed within her memory for words although she could not forget the events of this tale. After all, she was telling her son about his own father, who strayed.

“Mother what happened to the man” asked the wide-eyed little boy.

“She starts walking around the valley, gold clanging and spreading her mystic fumes. She finally got the man’s attention; he was drawn to her without suspicion. He thought she was lost; he wanted to help the lonely lady at any cost. She kept her eyes low; she had long lavish lashes, a perfect beauty that turns flames to ashes.

“Are you lost” the wonderer asked.

“She turned around to claim her prize, When he got close enough she lifted her eyes, her cat like yellow gazes could not be disguised. He turned around and chanted his prayers; he ran with eyes full of tears. He knew the myth he came across, she wasn’t a ghost as he once thought.”

“Did he get away, Mother? Did he escape?” asked the little boy in sorrow.

The mother tenderly kissed her boy’s forehead. She placed him down into his bed, covering him with a blanket, and walked away. She approached the door and said in despair, ”No one has ever lived to tell his tale. Anyone who meets her ends up meeting their fate”.

The shadow at the window, stood still, unnoticed by those who lived within. She listened to her own story with pain in her heart she could not bare. She gave the boy a final look; she had always liked children and their innocence.

“I would have been a great mother,” she whispered under her breath, before turning to walk away.

She traveled back to her cave, to escape from the lies’ wave. She remembered the time when she was young human. She was as fair as a moonlit night, long black hair and a face of light. Caravans traveled to her father’s palace, to ask for the hand of his beautiful daughter. She was not always a cursed creature but a victim of a cruel spell from a wizard of hell. She had refused the wizard’s marriage proposal, so he was compelled to avenge his lost honor. On her wedding night upon witnessing her full beauty, he cursed her mirror until she become a monster that spread terror. She remained as beautiful as she was on her wedding night, untouched and petrifying.

Little did everyone know what she was hiding, the helpless creature desired understanding. She wandered the land searching for that wizard. She sought for any means to end this curse that consumed her spirit. She wandered the mountains that he roamed, but she never could find him, nor find solitude.

The myth that was there that she seduced and killed. There was no truth in that, as she is not skilled. She hurt only those who wanted to capture her, hunt her down and keep her captive. The savage hunters had a cruel heart, they wanted to cage her and display her to the masses. “Sell her to who would place the highest bid” She heard them arguing while she hid. They ran a freak show where she was the freak, she killed only those and left them reek.

She retreated to her cave night after night, crying in pain and shriek on her life. The mountains screeched at the sound of her voice, only to be deafened by the wind's hollow screams. An immortal, she became no end to her misery. As a legend she would live, just a mystery.

***
text // hessa albanafsaj
art // maha 

I AM WOMAN/SOMEHOW I'VE SURVIVED // R M

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Listen.
I am woman.
Painted lips and painted eyes,
underneath my black Abaya
is where I hide my fists.

Listen.
I am woman.
Words loll around my skull and tongue,
breath somehow enters, leaves my lungs -
a galaxy of bruises on my wrists.

Listen.
I am woman.
But when hair grows where the hair grows,
when I’m more hot blood and less red rose,
don’t chide me for my human-ness
and ask me why I’m pissed.
I am woman. 
I resist.

MY PARENTS WALTZED EVERY MORNING AFTER HEARING THE NEWS // HAYAT

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.
Ten years ago when we were told to 
hide if we want to keep ourselves and there might be a rocket
huddling our houses to the sky at any time,

My father took us to the beach and we watched
rockets tiptoe beyond the horizon and
clapped when the sirens and the waves
composed a symphony for us.

.
When my grandmother was prisoned for 
praying against something they didn’t see holiness in
she recorded a video which my mother watched while
eating peaches and passing her fingers through my hair.

.
My parents came from places where 
wars visited them too often.
So they never liked the police and
they bought as many flowers to place in their apartment 
so that their sudden death, if it happens, 
might look beautiful.

.
When my mother died I 
wore a pink shirt and hurried to tell my father.
My father smiled at me and we 
in that split second and among all the mourning
celebrated that little fact. 

.
My parents exhaled tenderness so
repeatedly in our palms that 
love and war don’t cancel each other when
both come at the doorstep.

PASSPORTS // SHAIMA ALSSLALI

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We are all, by some means, loyal. To someone, to something, to an idea, or a place. We belong by natural disposition to something of our choosing, hence defining and defending our restrictions in case any insurgence should occur. In a civilised world, most of us (I'm looking at you, Kuwait) have passports that tie us to certain cultures despite our unwillingness to adhere to them. We are children of that land, that is the basis of the system. Problematically, however, for citizens of wonderful Arabia, this appears to not be the case. Whatever land you were born on is of no concern, the real concern is "where can we dump you?"

I'm legally Yemeni, as Yemeni as Yemen gets. My passport is navy blue with a hawk or an eagle or whatever that squinty bird in gold is. I speak my dialect fluently, a gift of my culturally-proud parents. I'm even marginally good at Yemeni cuisine, something I never thought I'd need to learn because, well, I'm also Saudi. I'm Saudi in the sense that I was born here, Saudi in the sense that I've lived nearly 25 years here, Saudi in the sense that I'm more familiar with sand than I am with greenery, Saudi in the sense that I have to ask my mother about Yemen when I effortlessly know the littlest of things about life here, in Saudi.

And so, my loyalties are hazy for I love Yemen. I love Yemen, with its poverty and insufficient infrastructure, its perfect weather, divine architecture and otherworldly scenery, its generosity, hospitality, and wonderful food, Yemen has captivated me. But Saudi has always been home, I can navigate through Riyadh (via driver) with incredible ease, even mastering the detour maze where I insistantly fail a simple left turn behind my house in Yemen.

My loyalties are hazy, and have always been dormant, but now they're not. They're tested, tortured. Stretched from extremity to extremity to the point of laceration. Bombed in instalments 1200 air raids so far that set the cities alight. Terrorised every night for the past 2 weeks dusk till dawn. Annihilated. Demolished. Devastated.

It is very easy to point your finger at an Apache, ripping your sky up in half in patronising force. It's even easier to parade that force in a relaxed air of military supremacy, like a lion strutting out in the afternoon to stretch. It's somewhat difficult, though, to lie in the lion's den and cry for it to come back home. 

My loyalties take no hue, they're not leather-bound pages of pride. They're words of plea away from rubble, glass, and blood.

***
cover photo // steve mccurry 
more photographs of yemen

MISERY LOVES COMPANY // JOHARA ALMOGBEL

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I'm a forest that's filled with sadness,
An ocean that feels so blue.

A continent that has cow madness
A man that has gotten the flu

A half eaten donut; a dropped ice cream cone
The shattered cracked screen 
of a spanking new phone

A black ugly bruise, a closet of grey,
I'm the lone thread of a dangling fray 

I am misery, mind that you don't forget me
I am much stronger than happy could be

Ouch! Stop that! Don't pelt me with pointy rocks-
Painted in colors and covered in frocks!

No! Don't! Get back from that brownie!
Don't crawl into a duvet that's quite downy!

Stop being content! Start feeling bad! 
Remember all that you could have had!

Oh phooey, I quite give up on you.
You're arrrghh-ptimistic, oh bleh! Pee-yoo!

I'll go to some other ridiculous child
I'll do my magic and they'll go wild.

Fine, okay! Yes I'm leaving now!
No need to dance and shout and-ow!

Okay! Okay! Hold your galoshes. I'm gone.

But let me leave this door open just a crack.
You never quite know when I might be back.