#ancient hellenistic kingdoms comic

[deerheadlights]

Me wanting to draw an Achaemenid noble woman living in Alexandria who's really into music and realized there are literally no resources for Achaemenid era Persian music 😭

Okay but her sister married this Macedonian cavalry guy at the wedding at Susa (this girl was just a little kid at this time) and in the time before that they had been hanging out in Susa in Parmenion's finishing school for newly orphaned noble women (that is what I choose to call it), which included all the singing girls in the choir and their music master that were captured outside Damascus.

So she was already a prodigy but the king's music master was also a crazy musical genius and they basically just genius'd together until he died from some disease. Anyway so the Macedonian cavalry guy ended up with Ptolemy during the "Funeral Games" so he, his wife and this girl moved to Alexandria. If I made this a comic, it would be based around 321 or 318, basically the other Diadochi are trying to invade Egypt, and there's drama because of course Ptolemy only trusts his Macedonian troops, but there's like lots of Greeks and Egyptians (duh) in Alexandria, and an Egyptian priestess sees this and she wants Ptolemy to win just because she knows any of the other diadochi will not be so respectful to her temple so she tries to set up like "unifying propaganda" and part of that is asking this girl to write a patriotic song to have people call themselves 'Alexandrians' instead of Macedonians, Rhodians, Cypriots, etc. And this girl says yes because it makes her feel important and also the priestess is really hot.

[iln2001saudah]

PRINT PROJECT - MASKS

As mentioned in my discussions of readings, there is common experience amongst TCK’s and multi-ethnic people of assuming different personalities or donning different ‘masks’. I decided to pursue this idea further. It fascinated me because not only are masks a way of assimilating into a character, but they are traditionally used in order to emulate or become another person in order to tell a story. In many cases, most of us TCK’s are performing to tell the story that will benefit us (see The Good Immigrant (Shulka et. al, 2016) and Fluidity Amongst Structure (Geetha Reddy 2018)). 

In an effort to cover as many distinct ethnic groups as possible, I made a list of the major ethnic areas in the world and stared to group them together in terms of a shared aesthetic (mainly because there are simply too many to do every single one). 

The ones pictured here are the first 4. The first is done in the northern European tradition of illumination, encompassing the Norther European area (Celtic, British, Nordic etc.). The second is in the style of a Ancient Greek comical for the Mediterranean (aspects of ancient Greece are famously found in many parts of the Mediterranean, due to the spread of Hellenistic and subsequent Roman culture. It also ties in to the idea of telling a story). The third is a West African mask, an amalgamation of various west African styles with the basis being the Benin Ivory masks (Benin being one of the most well known African kingdoms). The last is for Eastern Europe. Though not explicitly a mask ( in fact finding masks for this area of the word was difficult) it is a good fit. this is is a rendition of a ‘gelina’ bride, of the Pomak people of Bulgaria, it is a made of gold and sequins put on the day of the wedding. It was a tradition that was banned under Soviet rule, that is now being revived by young brides in order to represent and preserve their culture, which in spirit ties very well to the themes of my study. 

I shall start with these 4, carving them in lino and printing them. On finishing these 4 I may progress to do more, depending on how much time they take.