my artwork was exhibited for the first time in new york city, at ideal glass studios in the west village – a digital collage i created in concert with my short film, return to sender: women of color in colonial postcards & the politics of representation. i was one of 20 artists whose work was selected. the opening was last night and it was spectacular. met some wonderful people. am thankful to @tenten.nyc for showcasing my work and hope to collab more:)
our beautiful speakers, musicians, artists, organizers, and audience members at imagine palestine on aug 23, 2024. thank u muna, dina, andrea, hernease, lamisa, matt, molly, jennifer, megan, rashaad, michelle, jackie, wegdan, halima, and rachel <3
photo credit: elizabeth chiang and mara ahmed
so grateful for beautiful people in this world who can come together, almost at the last minute, and create small disruptions (with ripple effects – always ripple effects) in systems of imperial power and destruction. thank u rachel crawford and matt mcdonald for being my compadres. more pictures from ‘imagine palestine’ soon!
photo credit: elizabeth chiang
some pictures from imagine palestine: an evening of poetry readings and music to raise funds for gaza at the @swedgemission in #rochesterny. a space full of beautiful people who shared visions of freedom for palestine, and stunning palestinian poetry in conversation with live music. a full house where we were able to raise thousands for the gaza municipality.
the struggle to decolonize is something special. it creates love and solidarity between complete strangers. it builds community <3
this will be a series of events to support and celebrate gaza and palestine. stay tuned!
organized by @unabridged.roc, mara ahmed and matthew mcdonald
good morning rochester! i am back and so looking forward to imagine palestine, an evening of poetry readings and music to raise funds for gaza, today at 7pm at the south wedge mission in rochester, ny. 12 artists and activists, 4 musicians, 7 poems by palestinian poets, multiple visions of palestinian futures, the reading of a beloved classic by a resistance writer, and a unique juxtaposition of silence for gaza by mahmoud darwish and musical reflections. all of it to come together in one space and provide mutual aid to the gaza municipality which is doing essential work at this moment. the event is free but pls come ready to donate and intervene in systems of oppression. see u at 7pm this evening!
lunch with the lovely kiran on tuesday. she took these beautiful pictures of our house. so much fun to hang out with another lover of abbas kiarostami’s film work
downtime and karaoke with friends last night and a meeting organized by @phototrouveemagazine where we got to meet in nyc and exchange photos today. a much needed break <3
Dear friends, please donate directly to the Gaza Municipality via this link:
Life for Gaza
“The Gaza Municipality is tasked with providing vital services such as water supply, waste management and sewage treatment. However, the widespread destruction in Gaza City has severely hampered the Municipality’s ability to deliver even the most basic necessities to its residents. With limited access to water, the population faces a dire health and environmental crisis, especially affecting children.
By joining forces in this initiative, we cultivate hope and solidarity, fostering empathy and collaboration across communities while easing the hardships endured by those in Gaza. This collective effort reassures Gazans that they are not alone in their struggle. The Gaza Municipality earnestly appeals for your support to help reinstate essential services, currently the foremost priority. In the northern regions of the Gaza Strip alone, over 500,000 individuals urgently require these services.”
So proud to attend the opening of my friend Safia’s photography exhibition at the Glen Cove Public Library yesterday! Here is more about her brilliant project:
“Living Water for Women is a halfway house located in Glen Cove, NY that fosters growth and independence for formerly incarcerated women to overcome their addictions. In 2016 l established biweekly art workshops at the home. At each session we use art as means of communication and expression. In this process, stories are shared, tears are often shed, and an important community has been created. These women are often shunned and forgotten by their families, friends, and society. They have important stories to share to help those who might also be struggling with addiction, mental health issues, and jobs. By combining portraits with transcribed interviews, I hope to both empower these women and raise awareness about addiction.“
Friends, as you know settler colonial violence has reached shocking levels in Gaza, with non-stop bombings and massacres for the past 10 months.
Gaza’s infrastructure has been systematically destroyed which means that along with starvation (on account of the food and water blockade), deadly epidemics are also setting in. The poliovirus has been found in sewage water now flowing freely in Gaza.
The Gaza Municipality provides water, sanitation and sewage management, waste collection, the removal of debris and reopening of key thoroughfares to facilitate movement, and aid to personnel doing heroic emergency work. They have started a fundraiser and are trying to raise a million dollars. They still have a long way to go. Let’s support them.
At this gathering, we hope to imagine Palestine beyond the ongoing horrors. Fanon said: “The settler’s work is to make dreams of liberty impossible for the native.” Let’s challenge such temporal control and envision Palestinian futures free of Zionist settler domination.
We will read poetry by Palestinian poets and writers, some of them iconic, others still relatively young. We will listen to music that will frame beautiful words of hope and resistance, and inspire us to visualize freedom for Palestine.
This is a free event where we will invite everyone to donate directly to the Gaza Municipality. Let’s articulate a just future in the face of imperial death cults – it’s a radical act!
Organized by Unabridged Literary Arts, Matthew McDonald and myself/ Warp & Weft Archive. Join us!
in a world full of violence and death, some stories manage to sparkle like drops of sunshine and make one’s heart sing. look at imane khelif who grew up in an algerian village and sold scrap metal to pay for bus trips to the city where she trained as a boxer. her dad is a welder, her mom sold couscous to support her daughter’s dream. now arshad nadeem from a small village in pakistan, who built his skills in javelin throwing by practicing tent pegging, has broken olympic records with a stunning throw of 92.97 meters. his dad is a mason who makes as little as $1/day at times. when gas bills got too high, the family was forced to use a coal pit for cooking, but they made sure arshad continued to have the diet he needed. to rise from such humble beginnings and become the best in the world, to compete with athletes trained by states and given an abundance of resources, to come from the global south and win in colonial empires – what incredible power and audacity! u make us proud!
btw still boycotting the olympics. come across these stories on social media and in whatsapp groups 🙂
Ismail Al-Ghoul was a Palestinian journalist and Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza. He was born in 1997 in Al-Shati refugee camp, north of Gaza City. A brilliant journalist who refused to leave, his reports became a mainstay of the news from the north of the Gaza Strip. He was assassinated along with his cameraman, Rami Al-Rifi, in Gaza City today. He was younger than my son.
“Let me tell you, my friend, that I no longer know the taste of sleep. The bodies of children and the screams of the injured and their blood-soaked images never leave my sight. The cries of mothers and the wailing of men who are missing their loved ones never fade from my hearing.
I can no longer bear the sound of children’s voices from beneath the rubble, nor can I forget the energy and power that reverberates at every moment, turning into a nightmare. It is no longer easy for me to stand before the rows of coffins, which are locked and extended, or to see the dead people more than the living who are fighting death beneath their homes, not finding a way out to safety and survival.
I am tired, my friend…”
More than 165 journalists have been killed in 10 months by the Israeli occupation.
sunset, west meadow beach, yesterday evening
i will not watch the olympics when an apartheid state in the process of exterminating palestinian children is allowed to participate and flaunt its genocidal talents. but the images i’ve seen so far are from a dystopian novel, full of garish spectacle including a bloody, guillotined head. so disorienting/ nauseating when i’m also watching footage of medics in gaza collecting the soot-covered head of a little girl and placing it gently into a body bag next to her tiny beheaded body. this and then reading ridiculously servile posts from fb liberals about joe biden’s shining legacy and patriotic sacrifice. what a violently racist, warped world we live in folx. the west is a lurid collective death cult. ceasefire now.
i am with her. sonya massey, a 36-year old black woman who called 9/11 for help and was shot in the head by a cop. she’s not the only black woman murdered by police in her own home. so were breonna taylor and atatiana jefferson not too long ago. and before that charleena lyles, korryn gaines and deborah danner.
did it matter who was in the white house when they were killed?
white supremacy is a bipartisan project. the death cult that applauds a war criminal fresh from butchering children in gaza, is the same racist system that slaughters black people in america. the utter dehumanization of palestinian children, so that their bodies become receptacles for untold savagery, means that brown and black bodies here at home are also stripped of rights and protections and will be equally open to incomprehensible brutality. not only that, they will be blamed consistently for their own extermination.
people of color in high places will not guarantee our safety. vote ur conscience, but pls look beyond mercenary politicians (of all skin tones and anatomies) for long term change. our survival depends on it.
