Modernism, Feminism and Science Fiction: Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes by Marwa Arsanios

Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes is an artist book published in 2012 by Lebanese contemporary artist Marwa Arsanios, included in her Al-Hilal project (2011–ongoing). This project is based on an examination of the Egyptian cultural magazine Al-Hilal, and more particularly of two issues dating back to Nasser’s presidency. These praised Nasser’s ideology of Arab socialism and nationalism by highlighting technological and scientific innovations, social progress and women’s emancipation. More than half a century later, after the failure of Nasser’s policy and ideology, Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes analyses the rhetoric of modernism and its promises in the magazine. It takes a particular interest in the expression of Egypt’s dream of space conquest, and in the representation of women, and more particularly of female Algerian freedom fighters. By re-engaging and manipulating Al-Hilal’s textual and visual language, Arsanios plays with a multiplicity of temporal layers and uses the prospective potentialities of science fiction to re-imagine the modernist ideals and assert the importance of a utopian thought for the present. This article invokes Svetlana Boym’s concepts of off-modernism and nostalgia to consider Words as Silence, Language as Rhymes as a feminist historiographical critique of modernism as conveyed by Al-Hilal.