August 16, 2005
Esteemed Visitor,
Welcome to this redesign of my website.
I bring to you photographs of a personal odyssey between Arab, Islamic and American worlds. To the extent an individual can be honest, all the information contained within this site is true. All the people represent only themselves. All the images derive from an imaginative reconstruction of the material and spiritual worlds, expressed and implied. We make no warranties that others will be safe from an encounter with said visions because shifts in perspective are oftimes hallucinegenic, implausible and dis-orienting. I apologize in advance for bad puns; they appear to be a necessary by-product of my imaginative process. Be assured, all complaints will be considered with 100% attention.
I wish to thank the J. Wiilliam Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, members of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), plus all other parties to the juried process for the luxury afforded by the Fulbright grant to make new photographs in 2005/6. My focus, "illluminating the Umayyad legacy," will take us to landscapes, ruins, museums, collections, and salons in the Levant. Who were the people who built the Dome of the Rock? Who commissioned her lovely mosaics? What worlds survive in their remaining aesthetic legacy? These and other questions of an artistic nature draw me back to work in the field, stirring up a bit of dust in order to ultimately see more clearly and immediately both the normal and the exceptional in Muslim culture.
I was raised in San Francisco and Chattanooga, Tennessee in a variously sunni, episcopal, unitarian, quaker, humanist, pentacostal, catholic, shia, presbyterian, jewish, baha'i, secular, lutheran, atheist, pagan, secular and meditative environment. I take great pride and sustenance in having becoming acquainted with my paternal heritage from Palestine. The Arabs have a saying, "a man is two-thirds made by his Mother's kin." With this strength, I make homage to these and the remaining third with photographs; thus a peculiar unity of mind and body and community are (temporarily) achieved. Photographs realized as fruition; also knowledge which may serve as an antidote to America's war on terror for oil.
Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas called the Fulbright Grant Program a vehicle for promoting "mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries of the world." I applaud the sentiment of this goal and will probe the supposition that photography can be a valuable contributor to the process.
Of prime value is the survival and perpetuation of my efforts, and therefore I solicit the public's support through print purchase, licensing, and honoraria.
Thanking all who have helped this effort with art, I remain
Cordially Yours,
Saïd Nuseibeh
