Interview by Christabel Stewart
Portrait by Neil Hanna

CS In your work, there is an element of entertainment which often sets out to theatricalise history. Is this intentional?

WS In my trilogy, Cabaret Crusades (2010-12), and in other works, I am showing history in an entertainment format, like a cabaret. People always discuss history as if it had a beginning and end, which is not the case – it is continuous. My work analyses how we perceive and write history. When I talk about an event “from the Arab point of view”, that’s based on research I undertake and sources I find. But which Arab? Were they involved with a particular regime? If we are not careful and do not consider the finer contextual details of place and identity, we can be cheated by this simple conception of history. I attempt to make history accurate – I don’t change the sentences in the books – but I completely change the visuals. For instance, my 2024 film Drama 1882 explores the British occupation of Egypt that lasted for 73 years from 1882-1956, instigated by a fight in the streets of Alexandria between a man from Malta and an Egyptian donkey driver. The Maltese guy killed the Egyptian man, and that led to a battle in the streets of Alexandria in which almost 300 people were killed. Some of them were Egyptians, some were mixed Maltese-British, and that’s what led the British Army to say, “We must protect our subjects in the area”. They destroyed the midtown of Alexandria first, then killed almost 2,000 people in the city. Because history is in part a human creation, I decided to stage the story in a theatre and film it. Cabaret is a word that was often used during the First World War, but it has a double meaning. It represents people gathering to speak about politics, but at the same time, it means entertainment – the girls and dancing – especially in the Arab world. 

CS What does the musical – a medium more associated with frivolity more than politics – allow you to do?

WS All my films are musical films. Nothing is primary while something else is secondary. I don’t ever feel that the music or the scenography is a background, and the characters are the main element. The music is the work. The actors, the performers, are also the work. In Drama 1882, I attempted to deal with the entire production as a 3D painting: a moving musical painting. When I paint on canvas, I use the same colours, movement, the same density and the same composition. Each medium has its limitations: there are some emotions you cannot express in some media. The reason Picasso invented Cubism was to demonstrate that we see things from different angles at the same time. 

CS I like the idea that everything is on an equal footing. 

WS There are our heroes, of course, in the drama, but every single person on stage has the same importance. It is the same with the marionettes, where the set is essential. In Cabaret Crusades, usually you see a map, based on miniatures made after the Crusades, forged by Matrakçı Nasuh, a 16th century Bosnian researcher and geographer. He made incredible maps of places like Aleppo, Homs and Jerusalem. So, when the characters are in Damascus, you see in the background a map of the city. It’s important not to lose humour in the work, to present something serious that is meaningful for our existence without losing a sense of beauty and humour. 

CS You have said that we’re all like puppets, manipulated by forces we cannot control. Who controls the strings? 

WS There is a higher form of hierarchy in the world. Every system is controlled by another system, even if it’s not direct. The Pope, for example, is controlled by his Christian values – a system that makes a monumental impact in the world. This is also manipulation. The system manipulates us to believe that this is the best way of living – “it’s always been this way, it’s what we do” – that we need to go to work, for instance. These are capitalistic and religious systems we live by. 

CS You once made a film, The Cave (2005), where you’re talking in a supermarket.

WS That was my first internationally successful film, 20 years ago. It was a self-portrait, where I walk into a supermarket and recite the Koran for 15 minutes in one take. It was very personal. I’m from the Muslim world and learned Arabic, and I studied part of the Koran when I was young, living in Mecca. The clearest representation of the international world under capitalism is the supermarket. In the video I’m reading from Surah Al-Kahf, “The Cave”, the 18th chapter of the Koran. The chapter has many examples of expeditions, of people like Moses who were ordered by God to travel from one place to another to gain knowledge and power. It’s linked to the idea of the Seven Sleepers, who were religious people, and their village wanted to kill them simply because they were believers. The Sleepers asked God to protect them, then they found a cave, which they saw as a sign from God telling them to hide. There, they slept for 309 years, and then they came back to life and became, for a new generation, proof that God is capable of resurrecting people. What is incredible is that resistance can happen through sleeping. I did the recital first in Istanbul, which at the time was politically tense. Many people were protesting in Turkey because they wanted it to become part of the Islamic world, while the regime and some other parties wanted to become part of the European Union. This division showed them stretching each other. This is also an integral part of the work. .

The solo exhibition of Wael Shawky runs at Talbot Rice between 28 June and 28 September 2025.