Most, if not all countries have media censorship laws. Whether they are meant to ensure a standard of respect or to moderate public opinion, these laws exist everywhere, although we are not always aware of them.

I certainly wasn’t overly conscious of any restrictions regarding the art being made back home in Mexico. I frequently attended exhibitions displaying nude photography, saw political cartoons aggressively criticizing every president to have ever sat in the Palacio de Gobierno and had no problem watching an R-rated movie in the theater with graphic sexual content.

When it came to my own work, no one ever stopped me from putting together a piece about the slums of Mexico that specifically pointed out the incompetent administration and inefficient distribution of power in a country. I never really felt like I had to moderate my expression, nor did I feel like my environment was doing it for me. Art back home is pretty much self-service.

Coming to the UAE was an instant shock for me. As opposed to the self-service approach, art and media here are more visibly regulated. As part of an academic institution in the UAE, most of us have a fairly good idea of what kinds of things are allowed. We know not to criticize the government, politics, the royal family or Islam. We know to avoid delicate topics such as homosexuality and gender roles.

As students and artists, we should be concerned with how much we can express. We enjoy a considerable amount of freedom within NYU Abu Dhabi to express ourselves freely on these topics, and are even encouraged to do so, but if we want our work to be shown anywhere outside of the school community, we have to adhere to the laws of our host country.

At first, I was deeply disturbed by this censorship. As a film major, I found it more than slightly disconcerting to pursue filmmaking in a place where films in the cinema are blatantly cut and edited to fit the local standards. I did not come here with a particularly strong desire to make offensive paintings of Sheikh Mohammed or a film that criticizes homophobic tendencies within Islam but the fact that I couldn't was still annoying. I struggled with trying to understand what the “you can do anything, as long as it is respectful” framework meant exactly.

As I gained more experience actually creating art here and watching my peers do the same, I was surprised by what I discovered. The fact that we have to work under relatively dense limitations sparks an interesting alternative to blunt expression. I watched my friends craft beautiful capstone pieces dealing with the sensitive topics mentioned above without ever stating the topic at all. I watched and learned that there are other ways to say what you want through art that is not so in-your-face. I have found that the restrictions in place do not necessarily mean that we cannot talk about certain things, but rather that we have to think harder about how we talk about these things.

While I was in Prague this past January Term, I had the opportunity to learn about art and expression under the Soviet occupation. The rules and regulations regarding censorship at that time were much stricter than the ones in place in Abu Dhabi. Yet, artists were often able to create provocative pieces that surpassed limitations by carefully adapting their message. Filmmaker Jiří Trnka, for example, published a short animation called “Ruka”, or“The Hand.” In it, a massive, glove-like white hand visits a sculptor and tries to force him to make a sculpture of itself. The sculptor refuses each time, and the hand becomes increasingly violent until the sculptor can’t take it and commits suicide. The white hand officiates the funeral. Trnka never directly critiqued the communist regime, yet he managed to make a strong commentary by metaphorically depicting the regime and, for a time, “Ruka”was allowed in Czechoslovakia.

Joanne Savio, a Film Professor at NYUAD, remarked: “Young filmmakers [and artists] learn how to use ambiguity, nuance and humor to ask questions around religion, sexuality, politics, gender roles, family, labor and other topics often perceived as off limits. In many ways censorship encourages creativity.”

The debate about whether or not art should be censored remains and it is a big one. I still believe that art should be consumed in a self-service model instead of the predigested manner we are given here. I do not in any way believe it is right that our freedom of expression regarding certain topics is restricted but for now, we have to adapt if we want to continue making art that is out there.

As an art student, I have finally chosen to take it all as, in the words of Professor Savio, “an opportunity, rather than a constraint – a chance to be creative and imaginative in a way [you] never thought possible … Everywhere there are rules and restrictions that must be adhered to. No reason for the artist to go into a box, close the lid, and resent the limitation. Use restriction to set your ideas free.”