Mapas del habitar : subversiones y reinvenciones cartográficas en el arte contemporáneo de mundo árabe

Resum

Under the title “Maps of inhabiting. Cartographic subversions and reinventions in contemporary art from the Arab world”, this thesis explores the growing presence of territorial representations through a critical gaze and personal experience of place in contemporary art from the Arab world. In some works, the canonical map is manipulated and subverted with the purpose of evidencing its shortcomings. Other pieces reconfigure, and even transcend, the cartographic lexicon to explore alternative forms of spatial representation, seeking to articulate a more diverse and experiential narration of the world. Behind both types of projects lies a reconsideration of the definition, the relationship with and the narration of the places we traverse. This, in turn, evidences the inherent need of human beings – geographical beings – to learn and convey the territory through their experience of it. For this reason, throughout the thesis the projects have often been referred to as ‘cartobiographies’, a term coined by Antonio Jesús Palacios Ortiz that alludes simultaneously to the narrative of place and of the being in that place. This phenomenon responds, on the one hand and at a regional level, to the controversy around the possible currency and reinvention of the notion ‘Arab world’. On the other hand, at a global level, it responds to a widespread reconsideration of the conception of place and its representations in the framework of the so-called spatial turn and the effects of a wild globalization. Taking them as a whole, these proposals opt for an experiential narrative of the world that traverses, overflows and complements more traditional ones, reinventing in the process the long-standing relationship between art and cartography...