Sheikh ‘n’ Vac
Yara El-Sherbini (2005)
‘Imam preaching to a crowd. Policeman enters.
Policeman “I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you preaching, sir.”
Bystander “Oh c’mon mate, this man ’as a right t’be’erd.”
Policeman “It’s his beard that worries me.”’
In Sheikh ‘n’ Vac, Yara El-Sherbini’s drawings and jokes, which play with stereotypes and provocatively satirize representations of Muslims, are offset by an apparently indecipherable stream of consciousness. Exploring the nuances of language, dialect, speech and comedy, El-Sherbini playfully buries coded messages into a stream of mis-spelt words, which, juxtaposed with visual puns, quips and malapropisms confront the reader with the tensions of religious and racial identities.
Published as part of Scape Specific, commissioned by Sara Wajid.
