“My brother, sisters and I are fortunate enough to have our own ‘hakawati,’” artist Helen Zughaib shares. “A storyteller, whose stories stem from his love for his children and a desire to both educate and entertain. ‘Let me tell you a story.’ And so it would begin. The noise around the dinner table would quiet down and we would all turn our attention to our father.”
The Community Center Art Gallery has reopened this month with a new exhibition entitled Stories My Father Told Me: The Art of Helen Zughaib. The show includes 21 paintings and prints from a series Helen created based on her father’s stories of his youth in Syria and Lebanon. The period depicted is the 1930s and ’40s, offering a glimpse of village life 5,800 miles away during Greenbelt’s construction and early years.
Writer and curator Maymanah Farhat notes that the series transports the viewer “to a world of beauty and wonder” while narrating “the stories of a people who survive political turmoil and uncertain times with humor, grace and empathy – all rooted in unconditional love.” Visually, Helen’s work is richly colored, meticulously painted and vibrantly patterned. Her complex compositions reflect diverse influences including Henri Matisse, Arab decorative artists and Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series.
As generous as Helen’s father Elia Zughaib was with his stories around the dinner table, writing them down was another matter. This required stretching the boundaries of his sense of family privacy and overcoming his skepticism that the stories would be of interest to a wider audience. It was only through the intervention of Helen’s mother, Georgia Zughaib, that Helen’s request was granted – and Elia’s stories reached the page. Helen received them one at a time – 25 in all, over a span of 12 years.
Helen’s paintings and Elia’s stories are reproduced in the book Stories My Father Told Me published in 2020 by Cune Press. The book was recently honored with the Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award from the Arab American National Museum in Detroit. Synopses are posted with each of the images in the exhibition, with quotations from Elia’s original text.
A copy of the book is also available in the gallery for guests to enjoy during their visit. Digital content is in development, including a video interview and audio recordings of Helen Zughaib reading and commenting on select stories; once posted, these recordings will be accessible in the gallery with a smart phone or with links posted at greenbeltmd.gov/arts. The artwork and stories are appropriate for all ages.
Elia’s stories include fond recollections of times that he and his sister spent with their grandparents in their mountain village; working in the orchards, planting olive trees or harvesting figs seemed to bring every bit as much joy as the games they played and the poetry they recited in the evenings. Many of the stories subtly imparted an education in civic values – neighbors helping neighbors, each generation supporting the next. Other tales recall the chanting of peddlers and itinerant entertainers in the streets of their hometown, spectacular community celebrations and the captivating power of an auntie using coffee grounds to tell fortunes. Some of Elia’s stories recall the harder times as well, times of war, leading to the evacuation of their beloved town on foot and his family’s immigration to the United States in 1946.
As a naturalized citizen, Elia Zughaib served in the U.S. foreign service and was posted back in Lebanon, from which his family had fled. Helen Zughaib was born there, growing up in Lebanon and other posts in the Middle East and Europe. She arrived in the United States for the first time at age 16 as an American citizen, yet faced with tremendous “culture shock.”
Like her father’s journey to America, her own transition also occurred against a backdrop of war in Lebanon in 1979. And, like her father, Helen has become an international bridge builder. She has served as cultural envoy to Palestine, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. Her work has been included in Art in Embassy State Department exhibitions abroad, including Brunei, Nicaragua, Mauritius, Iraq, Belgium, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The Kennedy Center/REACH selected Helen for their 2021 Inaugural Social Practice Residency. Her paintings have been gifted to heads of state by former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t feel like I ever fit in. Ever,” Helen shared in a recent interview. “I feel like one toe here and one toe there … and I’ve grown to sort of like that place. It used to bother me … and I now appreciate … that I can see both sides of things.” She has leaned into that liminal experience and found it to be a very productive place, both artistically and with respect to her values. “As an Arab American,” Helen writes, “I hope through my work to encourage dialogue and bring understanding and acceptance between the people of the Arab world and the West, especially since 9/11, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the more recent revolutions and crises in the Arab world resulting from the ‘Arab Spring’ that began in late 2010, leading to the current war in Syria and the massive displacement of people seeking refuge in Europe, the Middle East and America.”
“My work is ultimately about creating empathy,” she continues. “Creating a shared space for introspection and dialogue. I ask the viewer to see through someone else’s eyes, to walk in another’s shoes. To accept the ‘other.’ To reject divisiveness. To promote acceptance and understanding and to reject violence and subjugation of anyone anywhere. To give voice to the voiceless, to heal, to reflect in our shared humanity.”
Stories My Father Told Me will be on view at the Community Center through early November. The gallery is open Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sundays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Masks are required. Visitors should use the historic entrance facing Crescent Road, where they will undergo a quick health screening upon entry. An Art Studio and Gallery Open House will be held on Sunday, October 3 from 1 to 4 p.m. Visitors can meet Helen Zughaib in the gallery during the first half of the event. Arts programs of the City of Greenbelt are sponsored in part by the Maryland State Arts Council.
Nicole DeWald is the Arts Supervisor for Greenbelt Recreation.
Portrait of Helen Zughaib
