Colonial Colonnade is a visual, textual, aural, architectural, and cognitively rich space for interdisciplinary explorations of the Arabic language intertwined and parallel to languages such as English and Spanish. Colonial Colonnade installations function as non-linear, interactive and immersive realms, often larger than human scale for physical and tactile engagements. Participants may literally push into words, patterns, and symbols that may push back. Language is enlisted into partnerships to invigorate and nourish experimental poetics, installation, performance, film, sound, and dance/movement.
Colonial Colonnade will be premiering at the Arab American National Museum from November 9, 2023 to June 9, 2024. Arab.AMP commissioned Colonial Colonnade’s inception through a California Arts Council grant premiering four short videos on 28 March 2021. Mizna, Arab American Literary and Cultural magazine introduced Colonial Colonnade in the 2022 experimental issue. Most recently, two “curtains” of text are being shown in “A Common Thread,” a group exhibit at Art Share LA in Los Angeles until June 19, 2023.
ORIGIN of Colonial Colonnade: Bittar experienced a “six-week trance of word utterances” in early 2021. Bittar listed the words in the sequence presented from day to day. She broadened the scope to translate the English words into Arabic and seat them into a star matrix Islamic pattern. A persistent theme emerged from the words, usually beginning with English letter “c,” on the historical ghosts and legacies of colonialism. Video sketches continue to be created with original sound pieces. A team of colleagues have used the evolving environment for experimental and collaborative work in dance, music, and poetics.
