Perhaps unexpectedly, imprisonment was a time of both suffering and enlightenment: ‘I was able to see clearly where in earlier days I had gone wrong – in my work, my intellectual perceptions, my performance’, El-Salahi says. In September 1975, El-Salahi was arrested by Sudanese dictator Gaafar Nimiery’s regime on false suspicion of anti-government activities and subsequently imprisoned in Sudan’s notorious Kober Prison, where he was held for six months without a trial. El-Salahi’s Prison Notebook (1976), Arab Spring Notebook (2011), and Pain Relief Drawings (2017-2018) are powerful examples of the complex potentials of the graphic line. Since 1975, El-Salahi has turned to the pen-and-ink medium several times, creating three important serial works (visual diaries of sorts) which draw on graphic inscription as a tool of healing. One crucial-and perhaps lesser known-aspect of El-Salahi’s calligraphic experimentation is his drawing practise.
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