Wael Shawky

From his childhood in Makkah to his cinematic portrayals of the Crusades, Wael Shawky's work challenges the construction of history by Rahel Aima

- Rahel Aima

In one of the eeriest works at Jeddah's inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in 2023, a trio of giant streetlights tilted slowly from side to side, soundtracked by the otherworldly hum of locusts. This kinetic sculpture was In the Sound of Muzdalifah (2023) by Egyptian artist Wael Shawky, known for his richly textured filmic trilogies that challenge the hagiographic construction of history. The work recalls the artist's vivid childhood experience of Hajj - the holy pilgrimage to Makkah in which the faithful perform combined sunset and evening prayers before sleeping under the stars just outside Islam's holiest city. While intended to speak to the sense of wonder and spiritual calm the artist experienced during his pilgrimage, shown in Saudi Arabia amidst its most recent social reform, the work felt more like a portent.

Although Shawky didn't know it at the time, Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s was a country about to undergo a sea change. In December 1979, several hundred anti-monarchist militants laid siege to the Great Mosque of Makkah, the holiest site in Islam. They held worshippers hostage and fought a bloody battle that lasted two weeks, ending only with help from elite tactical French military units. In response, Saudi Arabia adopted a much stricter set of religious laws, radically empowered the clergy and established the religious police, ushering in nearly four decades of austere conservatism. It was a watershed moment for a young Shawky, who was born in Alexandria but spent his preteen years in Makkah and experienced this transformation first hand. It sparked an interest in frictive clashes between disparate systems that would become central to his practice.