Jihad Pop

Currently on view at the Queens Museum of Art is the exhibition Generation 1.5, featuring works by artists who immigrated to a country in their adolescence. According to the exhibition page, "1.5 members are old enough to be fluent in their home language and culture, but have less difficulty adjusting to change than their first-generation counterparts. Often characterized by cultural hybridity, 1.5ers navigate various cultural perspectives from the inside, while often feeling un-tethered to any one homeland."

The artists on view supposedly, "take part in dexterous manipulations of artistic modes and materials as they engage with diverse personal, social, and intellectual contexts...[walking] the line between assimilation and dissent...uniquely capable of critiquing their native country as well as their adopted ones."

While a number of the pieces impressed me, what stood out the most were a couple rooms devoted to Pakistan/Brooklyn's Seher Shah. Her Black Cube and Jihad Pop series both overlay Western architectural perspectives of Islamic buildings (real or imagined) with dynamic imagery to create realms at once utopian and nostalgic."


Interior Courtyard 2, 2006, from the series Jihad Pop Progression 5

You can read an interview with Shah here, where she talks about her background, architectural and other inspirations, and perceptions of 1.5ers.


Image Play 1

Visiting her web site, her other works hold the same appeal for me, like the one above that incorporates color as well as photography to create a striking collage composition.


Jihad Pop Progression 3, detail

From the artist's statement:

"Jihad Pop exists as a means to explore how issues of identity and associations define themselves. Where do I belong when past associations of both family and lifestyle breakdown and begin to form new negotiations based on personal values. The personal symbols that I have acquired through my own values play out simultaneously with symbols of Islamic religion and death as a symbol of struggle. The meeting of these two words ‘jihad’ and ‘pop’ is the marriage of this exploration of identity and the simultaneous broadcast of imagery of violence, conflict and migration."