On Topic: Hend Al-Mansour ‘02, MFA Episode Three

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Hend Al-Mansour ‘02, MFA is a visual artist practicing in Minneapolis. Hend and Sanjit talk about Hend's childhood in Saudi Arabia, her transition from doctor to artist, and about how her move to the United States changed her relationship to Islamic art.

"I see artists as windows or vents for the whole society to breathe and to express what's there because what's inside the artist is always inside her culture or her community. The artists are the tools for the collective unconscious."

On Topic is platform exploring the complex and lucid cultural conversations that represent the DNA of MCAD. If you like this episode, you can explore events, writings, and more episodes.

As a child, Hend Al-Mansour ‘02, MFA carved large female figures into sand. Growing up, she was acutely aware of her limited opportunities as a Saudi Arabian woman. So instead of art, she studied medicine in Cairo, Egypt. For many years she practiced as a cardiologist but also built a reputation among her colleagues for the images she drew in the doctors' rooms. In 1997, Al-Mansour relocated to the United States, where she finally was free to follow her calling: art.

In 2002, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2013, she completed another Master of Art History at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Inspired by her interest in pre-Islamic art, her thesis focused on the mid-twentieth century shift in henna art in her hometown, Hofuf, Saudi Arabia. Al-Mansour based a series of prints on the historical designs her research documented.

Al-Mansour’s art reflects the female culture of her hometown. Arabic and Islamic aesthetics influence her work which references gender politics in the Arab world. In vibrant colors, her screen-prints integrate stylized figures, Arabic calligraphy, and designs of Sadou (Bedouin style) and henna. She also constructs shrine-like spaces out of printed fabric. Secluded by ceilings, rugs, columns and domes, nuanced by sound and light, such installations recall both Bedouin tents and Islamic architecture. Objects such as a fabricated tea set or a papier-mâché tree hint at personal narratives.
Al-Mansour was awarded McKnight Fellowship in 2018, Jerome Fellowship of Printmaking in 2013/14, the Juror’s Award of the Contemporary Islamic Art exhibition in Riyadh Saudi Arabia in 2012 and Minnesota State Art Board Artist Initiative grant in 2005. She was listed among the 100 most powerful Arab women in 2009, 2011 and 2012 in the online magazine Arabian Business. She has shown her work in regional, national and international exhibitions, lectured on Arab art and her personal journey, and curated exhibitions featuring Middle Eastern artists. Al-Mansour is a co-founder of the group Arab Artists in the Twin Cities and was a member of the Arab American Cultural Institute in Minnesota, where she worked to promote the understanding and expression of Arab culture in the West.

More from Hend:

• View Hend's Work
• Hend Al-Mansour creates art to question women's roles

Full Transcript:

Sanjit: So Hend, I thought we'd start by asking you about what it was like to grow up in Saudi Arabia and what some of your earlier influences were.

Hend: I like art since my early childhood and I was drawing all the time growing up and my mother was also drawing and I think she was my first influence, because she would draw things and asked me to take it and show it to my father when he has guests. I guess she wanted to show her work and she didn't have an audience and I played the role of the creator. But anyways, I also watched some of my classmates drawing and I remember one girl was drawing really nice figure-drawings but then she threw them in the wastebasket. She just showed them to her friends and threw them away and I would go and pick them up and take them home and just look at them. And I saw them, they're very very beautiful and that was also one of my big influences growing up. So the reason why I went to medical school is very complex and I'm not sure it was initiated by myself. My parents wanted me to be a doctor. I knew that because since my early childhood they would instill that into me and I didn't resist. I just knew my goal and as soon as I finished from high school, I went to medical school, which is different in the Middle East. To finish high school and then you go immediately to medical school and then medical school is 7 year—7 years and I went to medical school in Egypt, Cairo which was a big change from Saudi Arabia. Because in Saudi Arabia women cover their bodies and most of the time their faces and that's what I did. And it was in Egypt I was free to not do that and I was at the stage that I was really fed up of covering myself. I wanted freedom and I had good time in Egypt. I was only 16 year old when I went there and it was a forming years for me.

Sanjit: When you're making that transition from being in Saudi to going to Cairo I'm assuming you're coming home often and I'm wondering about how those homecomings must have been. I remember that one time and I was flying from Washington DC to Riyadh and I remember seeing all the women starting to go ahead and put on their coverings about halfway through the flight or the two hours before the flight was landing. And just kind of reflecting on how the kind of returns home must have been for you and I don't know if you have any thoughts or recollections about that.

Hend: Yeah, I remember like, well, going home for me then was to see my family and I was very nostalgic and I was anxious to meet them. And, but you mentioned the airplane and there is a weird feeling like when I go back to Saudi Arabia and there's a feeling. I don't really put my Abaya on but I feel like there is a feeling of entering into a, even in the air, but it just like dominating feeling of oppression and restriction and like you're going into a prison or something. And then, similarly, when I was flying away from Saudi Arabia there is a, like initially when I'm in the air, I would have a feeling of freedom. I don't know if anybody else feel the same way but that's just like something inside me that happens every time I go out and in.

Sanjit: Yeah, well it's a different space right? It feels like you're that kind of, that transitory space feels like a different form of reality.

Hend: Yes. Exactly.

Sanjit: I'm wondering and I'm reflecting on how you mentioned about the colleague of yours that would throw their figure drawings in the waste paper basket after showing them to you or to some of her friends. I'm wondering how you started to feel about the body after your 7 years in medical school at Cairo ended. I'm assuming your own relationship to thinking about body and form probably changed vastly or dramatically.

Hend: People ask me how being in Medical College affected me as an artist and I have no good answer for that. Except maybe training and medicine and sciences trained my brain to think a certain way and train my behavior and my way of looking at things in a certain way. But not really influence my art making. Or maybe it does, I don't know I have to discover that yet. But as I said I wasn't really liking being in medical school very much. I didn't do well in my college initially and then I realize I have to study and pass and then after a while of being a doctor I just get burned out and didn't enjoy myself anymore. And then I realized that I have to just do the thing that makes me happy and I shifted my career and that was after long years of being a doctor.

Sanjit: And that included your accepting a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic right?

Hend: Yes, so I was waiting for a chance at that time to just leave Saudi Arabia. And that fellowship was a kind of chance of leaving.

Sanjit: Did the leaving to the United States feel, how did it feel different than leaving to go to Cairo?

Hend: I lived, I visited different places in my, during my medical career. I even lived in few months in England and I visited Europe a lot and I came to the United States several times so it wasn't totally new environment to me. But to live here to be one of people here is different and I was always seeing things from the outside and now I am an insider and that was quite a change. And I remember during the year 2000 or so, I came here 1997, so two years into being in America. I was just questioning all my values and I was kind of devastated of like how do I do this, this is not right. And you know that a lot of things that I had to come to terms with and understand what I really want and what is really valuable for me to do away from my casual teachings and my bringing up, which is hard because I came here already an adult and you know formed so it wasn't too easy to break with the basis of myself.

Sanjit: And my assumption is some of those breaks with your mirror, the culture and values of your upbringing, didn't happen overnight. They were breaks that probably occurred over years. Um, are there ones that stood out for you? Or that you think were either the hardest in terms of tension points and things that you had to let go of?

Hend: Yeah, so when I was there in Saudi Arabia, I was also rebellious. And I wasn't, you know, the reason why I left is I didn't want to wear Abaya or I didn't want to have a guardian who has to agree on everything I do and want and he has to be a male. So I wasn't agreeable to everything, but I had an understanding that all these things are misinterpretation of Islam. And we are inside Arabia, are very conservative fundamentalist blah blah blah and Islam is not like this. But when I came here I turned to examine Islam itself and I went into a phase where I would read things in the Koran and analyze them and even put them in my art and and rebelled against them. So I turn, I change from being blaming the culture on Islam to blaming Islam itself. Like the culture came from the religion and the religion came from the culture and they just feed back into each other. So I can't separate them and say that this is because the government or the people and not God. Yeah, and later on I grew up out of that too, but this is the major thing that happened to me in the year 2000-2002 when I was in MCAD.

Sanjit: And can you talk a little bit about that shift? You're at the Mayo Clinic, you're doing a fellowship and then at a certain stage then art starts to enter the picture as a new direction for you. Can you describe how that shift occurred or what were some of the milestones or moments that you think that were pivotal in that shift?

Hend: Yes, when I came in Mayo Clinic I went to a medical examiner, found that I have breast cancer and that just like shocked me. It was in the initial months when I was there. Here I am coming to change my life and this big threat is in front of me and I just continue doing what I need to do have the treatment and continue doing the fellowship. But meanwhile I was just trying to process what happened and that's when I just like could not even go to the hospital anymore. I was so depressed and not motivated to continue this, the life I was leading. And I started reading self-help books and seeing psychotherapist and then I realized that something has to change and that is when I decided to come to MCAD for continuing education classes. So during the last year of my fellowship or maybe the last half, half a year I came to MCAD twice a week from Rochester and I had just like the painting and drawing classes. And I felt at home, they just like I realize that this is what I need to do and then I decided to do it. I finished my fellowship just in case I wanted something like I wasn't sure that I would continue liking being an artist. So I finished my fellowship and then I went to MCAD and the continuing studies help me build a portfolio and I applied for an MFA there and it was accepted.

Sanjit: What was your time like at MCAD? Did you feel like your, how'd you feel like your specific voice, and as you started to hone it or craft it further, how do you feel like that was received? And what were some of the, what were some of the individuals who may have met that were particularly influential to you?

Hend: It was, I could say that, if not the happiest, it's one of the happiest periods of my life, those two years. My mentor was Aribert Munzner and he's still my mentor, I had great time with him. I interviewed many teachers, that's what they asked us to do. To have an interview and then we settle on one and I remember our interview was 6 hours in a coffee shop and I took that as an indication of my liking him and it was really fruitful relationship.

Sanjit: That's a pretty good sign, six hours in a coffee shop with him. You know, one of the things that's notable for me about your work is the focus of figure. In that figurative work but it's done within the context of an elaboration of pattern that certainly seems influential, referential to where you grew up but also of a fantasy world. And I'm just, I'm wondering if you can talk about how you're able to pivot and and interplay between what, you know, I see as kind of traditional geometric patterns and backgrounds along with this fantasy and other-worldliness that I see in so many ways that the figures of your work are depicted.

Hend: Hmm I didn't do geometric designs or Islamic art vignettes or influence before I came to the United States. I used to do a figurative drawing and watercolor paintings when I was in Saudi Arabia. I did have some shows there too but when I came here I realize something that the teaching of Art in Middle East and my understanding of art was based on Western Art. This is like you know art schools are those you know the ones that Western artists did and there is no acknowledgement or no awareness of our own heritage in art. And so I, and then I also like when I came here I was put in a different category. Because I'm, you know, my skin color is different, my I have an accent, I'm from a different culture. And so being in that place made me want to belong but my belonging has to do with bringing something and unconsciously I went back to my culture and brought things that spoke to me and put them in my work. So I looked at a lot of Islamic art books and I just became fascinated with it and just like how genius those geometric designs and how multiforms they can take and it's an endless art form. Also the colors spoke to me a lot. I came from a desert land, there's not much color there. And I know that Bedouin woman and Bedouin people and people in Saudi Arabia in general love color and I love colors too and I think it's a compensation for absence of color in nature perhaps. But they would like to put color in their furniture and their clothes and their houses. I don't know about the otherness that you said about my work. I think I like to work with archetypes and especially of women and I would bring imaginative images of either woman I read about in history or just imaginative personalities.

Sanjit: Well, you know, one work of yours that I was, I've been really intrigued about and I'm glad I have a chance to talk to you cause, and I have no idea about the dimensions of this as I am looking at this online. But I think a piece of yours called Fatima in America 2, it is a red and white screen print. Were there, are these women's heads all around the border kind of a white geometric you know what I certainly see as kind of Islamic architecture referential piece. And I guess I'm wondering as I look at that and I see all these women's heads that are surrounding this central square geometric pattern. For me it seems like there's a commentary about narrative but it's also a commentary about multiple identities and I'd just love to know more about it.

Hend: So Fatima in America was a body of work that I made from 2005 until 2011 and I made three versions of it and it was an installation art work based on interview of Muslim women in Minnesota. So I would interview a woman and I would make a room that portray her soul or personality or character and let the interview inspire me to make the images. What you are referring to, it was the floor of that installation. So the installation starts with a facade and then there's a gate or doorway you enter and there's a floor in a, in a kind of like a central yard. It's made to mimic the Islamic architecture style, so you go to an central yard. Maybe there is a column and then columns around and then you go to each room which are around that yard. So those images, I wanted to bring one woman, face or head, from different Islamic cultures. So some of them were from book pictures and some of them from Islamic art books. Yes, so I would think of Iranian women or Moroccan women, Saudi women and I would just put her image there and with the way she adorn her face or dress her head or something like that. And the women I interviewed they are five women, one from Iran, one from Morocco, one from Jordan, one from Somalia, and one from Saudi Arabia.

Sanjit: You know it when I look at that image it feels like there is a degree of bearing witness of some kind. I was really struck by the gaze in all of those heads that are represented.

Hend: Like, a confrontational.

Sanjit: You know for me it seems a lot like bearing witness for gays that's kind of steady you know, it's locked and it's present. It's not something that I think the viewer can escape from and again I think for me, I found to be very powerful. I'm wondering as your work, it is evolving now. What are you thinking about or what have you been thinking about in the past few years? You don't think you were, back when you graduated in 02, are you where you thought you would be? Are you encountering yourself, having different types of conversations then you would plan?

Hend: Okay, when I left MCAD I started as a painting major and then by the end I was making more installation art. After I left MCAD I turned to screen printing, which is unfortunate because there at MCAD there's really a very good screen printing studio print shop that I didn't really make use of when I was there. So I learned screen printing on my own and I don't know why, I just fell in love with it after I graduated from MCAD and so I went on doing that. And then now I'm doing, I'm more fascinated with animation and I'm starting or I started taking classes and looking into animation, making baby steps and animation myself. So I didn't, when I was at MCAD, I didn't really think of myself doing those things but I want more. I was very optimistic I know and I thought I by sure after 10 years from my graduation I will be a very famous artist and my art would be everywhere and I'm sure everybody you know feels the same way. But I, the art world wasn't really very friendly. I had, I mean I work hard to get shows and get the grants. But it's, I mean I love it. I would love to be in a better place right now and that's what I thought when I graduated from MCAD. I thought I would be in a better place and turn off my visibility. But in terms of my artwork itself, the quality of artwork I'm maturing and I think I'm happy where I am. I do things I love to do and I experiment with whatever I like to do, so I'm in a good place that way.

Sanjit: That experimentation is something that's got to have fits and starts to it. I'm wondering if you'd talk to me about some of the frustrations that you have, projects that you feel like you haven't been able to get off the ground that you would have liked to or work in your studio that you're still trying to figure out that may still perplex you or flummoxed you?

Hend: Just the transition to animation is taking long time and it's frustrating and I think because I am afraid to make decisions, because the hardest decisions are the first decisions. They dictate where you go with your work and I like to know what I'm doing and I like to be in control, which is not good. Like I have to let myself go and just trust my body to do whatever needed to be done. So this is like you know just the transition to start my animation project which I have. I'm very excited about the project I have and I'm writing grants for it because I think once I get a grant then I will have the motivation and I will have the validity or acknowledgement of the value of this thing I'm doing. I have my studio and I can do whatever I want. but just like I want to do something of value I want my art to sell and I want my art to be acknowledged by the art keepers that it worth spending the time doing it. And that's why I want to have certain grants for certain projects. I don't want to spend my own money. You know funding my art doesn't sound right to me.

Sanjit: Yeah it's the entire culture ecosystem is complicated and looking for support as well as looking for ways to have opportunities, to have those discourses I think are things that are really only compounded by our current situation regarding the pandemic that we're in. And I wasn't sure if you've got thoughts about, both from your background in medicine as well as being a creative practitioner, about how you think the pandemic is affecting the broader cultural landscape that you've been so invested in over these past years.

Hend: It seems that we have, there are some changes to our way of life that might continue after this. You know the way we shop, the way we order food or order things or the way we socialize, even the way we communicate, all are affected by covid-19. And we found new ways and maybe those new ways are good and some of them are good and hopefully will continue until after. But it might be only a short period of time and then we go back to our normal life or perhaps if this lasted longer than this will be written in stone or something and we will continue to have it. I don't know if I answer my question, your question.

Sanjit: No, no I think it's helpful, it's something we're all contending with. It does make me start to think about the role that creative practitioner artists and designers play within situations like this. And you know specifically, I start to wonder about that notion of creative or cultural leadership. Individuals that are showing us how culture can evolve and change over time, either through their own practice or through supporting other people in their practice. You know I'm wondering if you've given any thought to the notion of cultural leadership and what may mean to you.

Hend: So I feel like I'm not leading my culture, which is a Arab American. I don't feel like I'm leading them or like I'm leader in that culture but I feel like I am maybe responsible for representing them or representing some of their dreams or values or ideas or bringing their culture to the main culture and asserting their presence and their belonging to the mainstream America.

Sanjit: And are there things that you'd love to change about the cultural ecology that exists here that you've reflected on since since your time here?

Hend: I want equality, that is what always move me, whether it is gender equality or cultural equality. Equality is my quest and I feel like there is a lot of inequality in this culture in general and I don't know if complete equality can happen anytime but we should fight for it. We should just look forward, to have equality between gender, between classes, between different ethnic groups, skin colors, languages, everything. Cause we are all human beings and we have the same right to Mother Earth and it just, it doesn't sound right that somebody would put some lines on the ground and say that this is mine and you're not allowed here or I have more privilege than you.

Sanjit: You know it seems like certainly over the past three years we've seen a rise in xenophobia, in anti-immigration sentiment and from my perspective, the pandemic is only emphasizing and exacerbating some of those qualities. And I am curious to know from your perspective, what's an artists role or responsibility in combatting or addressing those those virulent forms of xenophobia or discrimination?

Hend: Well the artist has to be true to their inner artist and their voice and vision. So not all artists can frankly address or speak about you know political issues or cultural issues it just depends on what the artists inclinations are. I don't see artists has different responsibilities than other people. I just see artist's as windows or vents for the whole society to breathe and to express what's inside because what's inside the artist is always inside her culture or her community. And the artists are the tools for the common unconscious or I don't know what I forgot what is the name for it, the collective unconscious. Yeah so we are tools for that, for the community to express itself and we just receive and express.

Sanjit: I'm wondering if there's any advice that you could give an artist or a curator that's starting out and is trying to address some of these inequities that you were mentioning earlier. That you thought needed to be addressed, that's trying to go ahead and to find an alternative path forward, beyond the more sanctioned systems or structures that exist now. I'm wondering what kind of advice would you give them?

Hend: Hmm well again I'd advise them to be true to their selves, to what they really think. Cause I think the art world, it's becoming a ridgid with system values and judgment that doesn't really reflect the overall culture. And often you see people when they go to a museum or see a piece of artwork they think that they have to say something great or you know be philosophical or not really feel and see the painting as it is. So I feel that there is a dissociation between the museum culture and general culture and I feel like creators have the responsibility to decrease the gap and come up to what the culture feel and think and be flexible. Be open, see everything, explore, that's all.

Sanjit: That's great and I think that's actually the perfect place to stop. Thanks so much for your time.

Hend: Oh you're welcome, thank you very much for having me.