Haneen: Between Home and Homeland

Here or there? That’s the eternal conundrum of the immigrant, and it’s conveyed in a number of ways in this exhibit of young Arab-American artists. There–be it Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Morocco, or Jordan–has beauty, tradition, and the resounding rightness of home. Here, in the United States, offers religious and creative freedom, for men and women. “My work questions what is unjust in my tradition,” says Saudi Arabian artist Hend Al-Mansour, whose hennaed cloth panels hang from the ceiling to create a private room within the gallery. In photographs of mosques and children, paintings of faceless draped women, and calligraphic figures from the Qur’an, homesickness collides with criticism. The most emphatic piece here is Jumana Al Hashal’s silkscreen of a plane dropping bombs labeled “WMD” onto the map of Iraq. 4137 Bloomington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-728-5728