Rats, Lies and Art

Apparently there has been a rather strange story doing the email/sms rounds amongst the islamic community of the region (more specifically the American University of Sharjah), about a rather feisty muslim girl who miraculaously turned into a rat after flinging the Holy Quran to the ground.

I chanced upon the story in the Leopard – The Official Student Newspaper of the American University of Sharjah

Click on the image to read the article

Can you believe that ? I bet Patricia Picinini had no idea that her piece which was initially intended to be pose thoughts about evolution would end up becoming the centre of much hoohaa in the middle east !

I remember this one Matt showed us at AIM and from the huge banner of ‘The Young Family’ that was hung up on Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.

I’m not even going to begin with the ‘how stupid i think it is’ for someone to have taken her work and then use it to hoax up such a ridiculous story to serve as means to meet their own misunderstood religious ends. Now, I personally have not seen the images and videos that are currently on circulation here but am led to believe that images of her silicone rubber sculpture were incorporated in a video with verses of the holy quran playing over it.. to support the story as evidence.

Not surprisingly, the site that hosted this material is temporarily unavailable because the set bandwidth limit was exceeded. However, forums such as ‘Islamic Broadcasting Network’ attracted umpteen enquiries into the matter:

Name: javeria ahmad
Location: Manchester UK
Message: salamz Please can you email me more information on the girl that became a monkey/kangero what state is she in now and what are they doing to treat her? can she talk? how is her family taking it? did the Quran actually fall on the floor? is there an actual website with her pictures of what she looked like before the incedent?

Name: uzma
Location: birmingham
Message: i want to see the girl who turned into a monkey

Name: Nadeem Raza
Location: London
Message: Please send me pictures of that girl who became a animal like a kangero. I am waiting for ur reply. Thanks

This by far is my favorite,

Name: love_ahlulbayt
Location: deaborn
Message: Salam. ive been hearing a lot about the girl turned in the monkey actually, and , it would be great if someone could show everyone here apic of this girl. this is a story that truly shows that Islam is the right religion, and Imam Mahdi(3ajallah ta3ala faraju is coming soon). soo please if n e one knows n e websites to paste them here. Ma2joreen and salam.

jeeez!

****update****

Matt said:

I have been following the hoax involving Patricia’s work. The way she discovered something was strange when the hits on her site went out of control and they were mainly coming from the Middle East when she looked at things further.

I remember one of her installations at the Melbourne Zoo involving her siren mole creatures being mistaken for ‘real’ animals by children as they were set up cleverly in the zoo enclosure with low lighting etc. Her intention, however has never been to trick – I remember her saying that alot.

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