Huda Lutfi

Long associated with mystery, secrecy, and sorcery or, to the obverse, idiocy and tomfoolery, hooded hats have long meandered in the popular imagination as normalized symbols of Otherness. The conical variety, known as “dunce cap” or “fool’s hat,” was the one chosen by Egyptian artist Huda Lutfi for her aptly titled installation The Fool’s Journal. A cultural historian well-versed in the multifarious references associated with such hats, Lutfi presented The Fool’s Journal in Cairo in the immediate aftermath of the popular uprising centered around Tahrir Square during the so-called Arab Spring (2011), which the installation both tangentially comments upon and documents in a cunning gesture of support. Made from haphazardly assembled paper cut-outs of various Arabic journals published during that pivotal period in contemporary Egyptian history—one that saw the deposition of its long-time ruler, ignited unrest across the region, and captured the global imagination already inflamed by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States—it stood then, as now, as a beacon for the emancipatory aspirations of the multitude.

The work is now re-presented to the public for the first time in the 13th Berlin Biennale. How will these testimonies resonate more than a decade later under the inflamed geopolitical circumstances in the Middle East? Left untranslated by design in Berlin—a global city with a sizeable Arabic-speaking community—who will the Fool’s Journal directly address in all the intricacies of a native tongue and the volatile political feelings it can incense?

Text: Claire Tancons