Letter To The Father, 2021

Reminiscent of Islamic manuscript layout design, Chaza Charafeddine copies in her own handwriting Franz Kafka’s letter to his father, a letter that never reached him.
In an attempt to write to her father, the artist traps the viewer into her own doubts, questions the communication between daughter and father, and destabilizes the original father/son conflict. As such, the artist touches upon the fears inherent in a long-lost communication. After all, a letter never written is a letter never received but is a letter written always received?  
"Letter to the Father" reveals an interest in appropriating visual elements from the past by subverting Kafka’s original German letter, copying it in Arabic, and presenting it in different forms.
 
Alya Karame
Islamic art historian
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Conversation between Manal Khader and Chaza Charafeddine on Letter To The Father.
M.K. In your Letter to the Father, there is an evident relationship between calligraphy and words on the one hand, and image on the other. Where did the idea to your engagement with Kafka's letter to his father com from?
C.C. Two years ago, or more, we agreed with a handful of artists to hold a collective exhibition revolving around the subject matter of love. Thinking about the things that I diligently gathered over the years, I noticed that they consist almost exclusively of paper, pens, ink and inkwells of all shapes and colors, and that they all are objects somehow associated with writing, and hence books. This is when I began conjuring books that have greatly influenced me, and Kafka's Letter to his father came to mind. Perhaps it was no coincidence that I chose this book for the theme "love" as one experiences the first love in their life with one's father- or mother. This is where the idea came to copy this book which, to me, is an act of love.
As for the issue of word/image, Kafka paints a picture of his conflicting emotions towards his father, starting from his fear of his father, guilt in his regard, and his unending admiration towards him. All of which are emotions with which I am deeply familiar, as well as its complexities and contradictions, and the means of circumventing them, absolving ourselves of them, expressing them or conversely repressing them, forgetting them, or attempting to move past them or side-step them. When I began copying the letter, I found myself writing in the form of a spiral. Text would begin in the center of the page, but the lines would swirl around each other towards its margins. Similar to our process of writing a letter, going through several attempts of writing, tearing the page off, rephrasing and rewording until we reach the desired meaning, such that the copying process was at times faltering and at others it progressed smoothly. Then, in front of me, words found their shapes in maps with unknown boundaries or trajectories. I would copy the words in an instinctive motion, as my hand would move along a rhythm dictated by the paragraphs or words until they formed the features of this map of the Arabic version of the book, which resemble the form of ancient Arabic scriptures. The German version, my last work, is perhaps the most mature among the twelve "letters" in the exhibition because it came after numerous attempts to write this letter. There is another element to writing and copying that is very special. In my view, our handwriting is an expression of our internal movements, as we put some of our soul on the paper as we write, especially if the paper contains an intimate message. As such, these lines, which were rendered into maps, form self-contained spaces with pathways some of which seem to have gaps or dead-ends, and others that facilitate the path to passers-by. The empty spaces on the page could also be seen as empty spaces in maps, and words form its structure.
M.K. There is something related to "grey areas" and mystery. Proper Arabic letters are so meticulously crafted so as to be unintelligible, while the large text in your letter to your father is Karshuni...
C.C. I wanted the letter to my father to take the form of successive paragraphs and lines in which there isn't a discernible beginning or end. I used unintelligible Karshuni to suggest that, no matter how much I try to speak (or write) to him, my attempts will always end in failure. However, I wanted to use large text so as not to say these words but rather to "scream" them, and thus I used larger text for my letter than that used in the Kafka letter. My letter is more than five meters by one. However, even if it reached a hundred meters, it wouldn't change anything, because saying more wouldn't help to convey what I want to say to him.
M.K. Words do not reveal themselves, and a viewer must write the story on theirown. It is a work that poses questions but also invokes awe, would you agree?
CC.The sense of awe may come indirectly from the act of writing itself. When we write a text, a sense of serenity remains that engulfs us, rendering us in that moment a mere listener. We listen to the sound the pen makes moving across the paper, to the movements of the letters we draw with our fingers using the pen. In this act of listening is a kind of awe with a constant state of surprise, as one doesn't know what form the letter we are drawing will take. The moment we notice the letter we drew, we are already occupied by the next letter. This is perhaps the state of anticipation that we feel subconsciously, and a sense of awe is thus invoked when observing the scripts. Perhaps this is also due to the effect that the scripts have on us, as we automatically fall silent in front of them, trying to understand their contents. There is another thing that invokes awe, as we are confronted with a letter addressed to the father, the cause of our existence, and in this sense, we confront an implicit admission of[the father's] superiority or authority over the author, on one hand, and - depending on the trajectory of one's life - gratitude or opposition to the "cause" that has allowed us to exist, on the other.
Translated from Arabic by Moayad Hokan

First show took place at Mina Image Centre, Beirut
10. November – 30 of December, 2021 
The exhibition was a collaboration between Mina Image Center and Saleh Barakat Gallery

CURATED BY MANAL KHADER 
ARTIST BOOK SPECIAL EDITION: NATHALIE ELMIR 
SOUND DESIGN: RANA EID - DB STUDIO 
AUDIO: CHAZA CHARAFEDDINE, NATHALIE ELMIR, FOUAD EL KHOURY 
LIGHT DESIGN: MOUSTAPHA YAMOUT

SPECIAL THANKS MOHAMED AL MUFTI, FOUAD EL KHOURY, MARITA SBEIH, HAZEM SAGHIEH