i am so honored to be part of the asian pacific islander american association of greater rochester’s 2023 pioneers, innovators, and entrepreneurs exhibit at rochester city hall. the exhibition is curated by the wonderful Mimi Lee and Lily Lee and will be on display until may 31st. thank u dearest Debora McDell Hernandez for taking this picture and for being honored as ally and friend of the APAA community <3
MY people! what a family dinner we had at zemeta ethiopian restaurant – best food, best convo, best radical vibes mixed in with beautiful hospitality. thank u donna, muna, sumayia, rajesh, erica and nate <3 and thank u zemeta!
finally saw joyland, the pakistani film that has taken international festivals and audiences by storm. it’s an unflinching study of the quiet horrors of heteropatriarchy – its rigid roles and antiquated hierarchies (that revolve around ridiculous notions of masculinity), its antilife rules and strictures, claustrophobia and mendacity.
yet with its vibrant ensemble cast, snappy writing, and intimate cinematography, the film is also filled with flashes of love, hope and human connection. it shows people who are desperately lost but also the grit and audacity it takes to have sovereignty over one’s life and body.
it’s a heartbreaking reminder that all of us need to be seen. even those of us who seem to be the strongest, the most reliable and least demanding, can break delicately once they become invisible.
So energizing to be part of the Artists Round Table today and talk about Hopeful Art & Artful Hope. The convo was moderated by the wonderful Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli and I learned so much about the work of amazing artists/activists like Michaela Oteri, TL Luke, Kristy Lisle, Kierston Ghaznavi, Yvette Pino, and Della Wells. From important struggles such as disability and reproductive rights, to representations of Black women in art and culture, to body types and using art to talk about politics, I felt like I was surrounded/sustained by artists using their art to challenge and enlighten.
The Women’s & Gender Studies Conference ‘Sustaining Hope: Feminisms, Freedom, and the Future’ is happening virtually for one last day tomorrow, April 15th.
It’s organized by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and held under the auspices of the UNESCO Chair on Gender, Wellbeing and a Culture of Peace as part of a global UN platform. It is free.
You can register here. And don’t forget to check out the artwork under ‘Artist Exhibition 2023.’
[Artwork by Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli]
everyone has seen nick cave’s famous soundsuits, but did u know he designed his first suit out of twigs after rodney king was violently beaten by police in 1991?
he has created more than 500 suits since. they have grown alongside his practice, evolving from a form of protective layer (that covers/hides the body) to an expression of confidence and exuberance pushing the limits of visibility.
in his work, cave uses everyday, found objects and racist memorabilia. he doesn’t believe that this history should be erased. he repurposes such ‘relics’ – taking them out of circulation and giving them new meaning.
it’s difficult to look at these objects. for example, the awful spittoon at the center of ‘sea sick’ does in fact induce nausea.
his mixed media sculptures look like soft fur, but in reality the patterns are painted on short, sharp wire fragments. the designs represent a layered cartography of cataclysmic weather patterns on top of brain scans of young black people suffering from ptsd as a result of gun violence.
that’s the remarkable thing about cave’s work – his art is harsh, abrasive, and contains an incredibly violent history, but it’s also gorgeous. at first glance, his work seems simple, joyous, full of color, sparkles and flowers, but it is also unsettling, complex, disturbing.
there was a line written on one of the walls at the goog which hit me hard. it said something like:
if we can turn junk into art, what grace can we extend to people who are most devalued by society?
I am super excited to be a part of the Women’s & Gender Studies Consortium ‘Sustaining Hope: Feminisms, Freedom, and the Future’ happening completely virtually, April 13-15. I will participate in the Artists’ Round Table on April 14th – starts at 3:30pm CTS (4:30pm EST).
This conference, organized by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and held under the auspices of the UNESCO Chair on Gender, Wellbeing and a Culture of Peace as part of a global UN platform, is free.
You can register here and you can look at the conference schedule here.
You can also check out at my artist page. Hope you can join us!
my short film, return to sender (about colonial postcards and orientalist representations of women from the colonies), is coming along well! i have a rough cut and have received feedback from women friends/filmmakers i’ve trusted for decades. thank u cat ashworth, surbhi dewan, nancy ghertner, kate kressmann-kehoe, and linda moroney. i also got permissions from publishing houses and insightful scholars to quote their work. most of all, i’m blown away, once again, by the sharp analysis and complete honesty of the three women who are at the center of the film. thank u Fatimah Arshad, Urvashi Bhattacharya and Sumayia Islam for ur brilliance and beauty <3
[photo: urvashi bhattacharya in ‘return to sender,’ photographed by mara ahmed]
This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by The Huntington Arts Council, Inc.
This short video was part of the Huntington Arts Council’s juried exhibition about the exploration of the human body. It won best in show. It’s finally public. Pls watch.
In her book, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine says: “Yes, and the body has memory. The physical carriage hauls more than its weight.”
Biological memory can be understood as a cellular response to a transient stimulus, a response that becomes lasting if chemical changes ensue. Body memory can be transmitted genetically via DNA and helps explain generational trauma.
This poem is about the multiformity of the human body and its many contexts. Some of the visual language in the text is inspired by a viewing of “52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone” at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in Connecticut. Hence the reference to detached limbs and strewn body parts, but also the need to reconstitute the female body, a powerful site for resistance and healing.
This video is closed captioned. Thank you Rajesh Barnabas, Mariko Yamada, Cloria Sutton, and Rochester City School District students <3
we got a text from our daughter earlier today telling us that trump was indicted. can’t believe our bacha works for the manhattan DA’s office. well done folx. #trumpjail2024
we have been working on this piece off and on since the beginning of 2023. so proud of this conversation with dr shirly bahar about performativity, solidarity across activist spaces, the relationship between trauma and language, and the importance of reconceptualizing feelings of powerlessness as public and political so as to pursue change. thank u shirly for ur brilliance and vision, thank u Santiago Slabodsky for bringing our work together at hofstra university and activating this piece, thank u josh lupo and atalia omer at Contending Modernities, university of notre dame, for ur editorial support and for publishing our work. to radical politics and solidarity.
the palestinian film festival amsterdam is coming soon in may this year! pls follow them on FB and learn about these brilliant films and more. lucky to have edited this trailer for the festival.
back at the lahore literary festival. wonderful to hear palestinian writer adania shibli talk about her stunning book, minor detail. not sure about the panel – she was paired with william sieghart, a british entrepreneur, publisher and philanthropist, who kept talking about the ‘conflict’ and how dialogue can solve all problems.
so glad adania addressed the use of language and her issues with the word conflict. it’s colonialism, she said. she explained how language can become complicit in a crime, how it can disappear it, and that there is no dearth of dialogue between palestinians and israelis – there is constant contact but it’s a certain kind of interaction, based on power differentials, where palestinians are forced to confront and challenge power structures day in, day out.
adania spoke about her love for the arabic language, how playful, free, and open it is. how important it is to palestinians. ‘adab’ in arabic means both literature and ethics. she also spoke about translation and how it’s essential, even in english, to create a scarred language with a memory of arabic.
finally, she talked a lot about narration and silences. the impossibility of narrating. the linear structure (beginning, middle, end) is not accessible to palestinians, therefore she can only imitate coherence. it’s better to accept silence rather than put words in someone’s mouth. we come to language from two sides of silence – both the reader and writer engage with language in silence.
my favorite session so far.
landed at the lahore literary festival today (thx for letting me know saira). went to alhamra to listen to daisy rockwell whose translation of “tomb of sand” by geetanjali shree won the booker prize, historian corinne lefèvre whose book “consolidating empire: power and elites in jahangir’s india (1605–1627)” resets the history of jahangir’s rule, mohsin hamid who talked about “the last white man” (a book i have read), and finally nobel laureate abdulrazak gurnah who discussed his work in: across centuries and continents, colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.
obviously, i was thrilled by a discussion on decolonizing literature and history, and so i wanted to ask mr gurnah about writing in english and the complications of producing decolonial literature in an imperial language. i referenced ngugi wa thiong’o’s “decolonizing the mind” and how he describes the disconnect between a colonized person’s mind and body – the mind functions in the colonial language while the body remains stuck in its native tongue. as colonized people ourselves, here in south asia, i was hoping to engage in an interesting discussion, but mr gurnah became defensive. perhaps he thought this was a personal attack on his work. he didn’t really address my question, saying simply that he didn’t agree with me or with ngugi who was welcome to do his own thing. i was hoping for more nuance and engagement.
anyway, later in the day i was approached by a woman who didn’t seem to be pakistani. she recognized me and said my question truly spoke to her and her husband, esp the idea of the mind-body split. they are french-speaking algerians and understand what it means to think and write in the language of the colonizer. there was an immediate connection between us. we talked about the algerian war of independence and frantz fanon. finally.
i found my groove in dubai today. it’s called alserkal avenue. located in al quoz, halfway between old and new dubai, this contemporary art hub was created in 2008 by housing art spaces, galleries, internet cafes, and artist studios in existing warehouses and factory buildings. incidentally, i started with an exhibition that purports to lift the voices of kashmiri women thru photography and testimonies. it was awful. from the get-go. more about that later.
i want to share what i loved first: ‘for you mother’ by palestinian artist rula halawani. based on conversations with her mother about palestine and her words, “even when we die and leave this world, our spirits remain, floating in the skies of our country,” halawani has produced these beautifully haunted and haunting, large-scale photomontages, a “marriage between archival images of palestinian families before the 1948 mass diaspora and palestinian landscapes captured thru her lens.”
halawani is also interested in examining how palestinian landscapes have changed — the people and natural environment that disappeared and are still disappearing.
so much love for and solidarity with the people of turkey and syria <3
image: contemporary turkish artist selma gurbuz. shadow, 2016
