Category: art

More Whitney Biennial

3 more artists from the Whitney Biennial that I loved. The last artist in particular has truly moved me to think about our current apocalyptic times in a different way by subverting colonial language and the limited, dismal visions it embodies.

Kiyan Williams, born 1991 in Newark, NJ: In Williams’s outdoor sculpture Ruins of Empire /I or The Earth Swallows the Master’s House, the north facade of the White House, which is composed of earth, leans on one side and sinks into the floor… The labor history embedded in the dirt points to a fragility in our political foundations, while the earth’s erosion embodies a critique of institutionality at a moment when institutions are toppling.

Rose B. Simpson, born 1983, Santa Fe, NM: In Rose B. Simpson’s Daughters: Reverence, four figures gaze at one another, creating a kind of force field of protection and solidarity that stands in contrast to an unstable world. “My lifework,” Simpson has explained, “is a seeking out of tools to use to heal the damages I have experienced as a human being of our postmodern and postcolonial era-objectification, stereotyping, and the disempowering detachment of our creative selves through the ease of modern technology.”

Demian Diné Yazhi’, born 1983 in Gallup, NM, we must stop imagining apocalypse/genocide + we must imagine liberation, 2024: As a poet and activist, Dine Yazhi’ has thought about how to use a colonizer’s language against colonialism, noting that they “want to see more poetry at protests.” Written in red neon, the text in this work emerges from the artist’s reflections on Indigenous resistance movements. Diné Yazhi calls on people working toward liberation to avoid predicting futures rooted in a Euro-Western “romanticization and addiction with apocalypse,” speculating that accepting catastrophe as a given leads to “writing our own demise or prisons.” Instead, they advocate for writing stories of liberation, finding alternate ways to work through oppressive moments as a collective.

Whitney Biennial 2024

So I went to the Whitney Biennial in NY and what I liked most was the work of Indigenous/ Asian/ South American artists. Here are some examples

-Cannupa Hanska Luger born 1979, Standing Rock, ND: “This installation is not inverted… our current world is upside down.” For the artist, upending our grounding in time and space makes way for imagined futures free of colonialism and capitalism, where broader Indigenous knowledge can thrive.

-Takako Yamaguchi, born 1952 in Okayama, Japan: Her recent seascapes use meticulously rendered zigzags, tubes, and lines to suggest weather and other natural elements. They reflect Yamaguchi’s experimentation with what she calls “abstraction in reverse,” or taking recognizable forms, like clouds or waves, and abstracting them to the point of pattern.

-Clarissa Tossin, born 1973 in Porto Alegre, Brazil: Clarissa Tossin’s film appears alongside 3D-printed replicas of pre-Columbian Maya wind instruments. Tossin had the replicas made so that they could be played in the film, which traces the movement of Maya people and culture across multiple spaces and temporalities, real and imagined, cosmological and colonized. The fact that the ancient instruments are not available for use-isolated from their original context and kept behind glass in museum collections-can be seen as a distillation of the themes of dislocation and tradition that Tossin works to reconcile in the film. Featuring the Kiche ‘Kaqchiquel poet Rosa Chávez and the Ixil Maya artist Tohil Fidel Brito Bernal, the film looks at ways in which contemporary Maya culture is activated by means of both reclamation and re-creation.

More in next post :))

in new york city

a recap of moments: walk by battery park at night with my daughter and looking at nyc thru her eyes, listening to françoise hardy again and feeling this profound emotional tug, remembering donald sutherland in ‘ordinary people’ and the extraordinary brilliance with which he talked about sculpture in one of his interviews, attending a gaza fundraiser organized by global feminists for palestine at jaishri’s studio in brooklyn (yes, that’s suheir hammad in the black veil) and being in community with other artists and writers, and finally dinner at tacombi’s with the lovely zeenat – it means everything to me to spend time with my friends’ kids and know that they are thriving.

talk & screening at new orleans museum of art

last post about kolaj fest new orleans: wanted to say something about my presentation and the screening of ‘return to sender: women of color in colonial postcards & the politics of representation.’

i started with a 20 min talk in which i expanded on some of the themes that are discussed in the film: the male gaze, the colonial lens, orientalism and the work of edward said, epistemicide and the work of ramon grosfoguel, photography as a tool of colonial surveys and expansion, white feminism, and of course palestine. i wasn’t sure of the reaction as my work digs deep into uncomfortable histories and racist systems, but i couldn’t have hoped for a better response. that many of the people in the audience were artists and scholars helped spark a vibrant discussion, but what meant most to me was what i heard from women, many of them women of color. there were a lot of tears and emotion, hugs and sharing. this is what art is for me: a way to interface and create community. thank u once again to the kolaj institute and all the wonderful people who attended ??

photographs by @eisenbergpitman

The Warp & Weft Palestine

Here is a recap of a project I’ve been working on since December last year.

The Warp & Weft audio archive came together in 2020 as a way to connect people from across the world during a global pandemic that caused untold loss and grief.

It is an ongoing project that allows diverse people (separated by arbitrary political borders) to share their stories and feel a sense of collective power.

In December 2023 we launched the next phase of this project. In the midst of the gruesome genocide in Gaza, people from around the world are welcome to join us in reading, holding up, and sharing the voices and stories of Palestinian writers and poets.

This is an open archive, so contact us if you would like to contribute a reading and pls follow us on Instagram: @WarpAndWeftArchive

Rajesh Barnabas wrote a piece about this project for Boomtown Press back in January:

‘Sometimes it seems trivial to be reciting poetry at a time of genocide. It can feel like a stunning privilege. But it’s also an act of resistance that goes hand in hand with protests and activist actions. As the Palestinian poet George Abraham has said: “Poetry can’t stop a bullet. Poetry won’t free a prisoner. And that’s why we need to do the political organizing work as well. But if we can’t imagine a free liberated world in language, how can we build one?”’

Read full article here.

last day at kolaj fest

friday june 14th in new orleans: started the day with a big breakfast at who dat cafe – had many brunches there back in feb. best biscuits and homemade jellies. arrived at cafe istanbul a bit late – apparently there is another ‘istanbul cafe’ on royal st and that’s the address i gave uber by mistake. so went on a longish car ride just to loop back to where i started. attended ‘collage & poetry’ followed by ‘time & fragmentation: collage theories.’ clive knights’ presentation intrigued me as i’ve been thinking about fragmentation in the context of war and its impact on the social/ political/ individual body. met the wonderful jenny veninga, a fellow activist and scholar, who shared other brilliant ideas with me. attended ‘getting organized: collage projects’ and then after a quick lunch at st. roch market, was inspired by ‘take me to the water: a baptism in collage,’ a workshop with the amazing lavonna varnado-brown, who talked about claudia rankine’s book ‘citizen’ and the idea of the body having memory – a major inspiration for my work. watch ‘the body has memory’ a video poem i created in 2022 and for which i won best in show at a juried exhibition organized by the huntington arts council in ny. link in comments ?

ended the day with collage & kiki, at the john thompson legacy center, hosted by lavonna varnado brown and jennella young. created collages with other artists and spent a lovely evening. so thankful to kolaj institute for creating this wonderful space at the intersection of art, activism, and academic research. hope to make this an annual ritual inshallah.

presentation and screening at noma

my day today, june 13th, as a series of non-linear moments: lunch at blue oak BBQ with artists phil and debi, a sketch of yours truly by the wonderful @stitchpixie who drew me as i spoke, the screening of ‘return to sender’ + my talk which introduced some of its themes + a brilliant and moving community discussion at the new orleans museum of art, the spectacular madera during a symposium on saving the planet, collage on screen at istanbul cafe, and hanging out with artists julie, diane and robin afterwards. wanted to listen to some jazz but decided to retire for the night. maybe tomorrow.

kolaj panel discussion at noma

attended a panel discussion with artists ryann sterling, ashley teamer, and soraya jean louis moderated by artist and scholar kristina kay robinson. i was nodding vigorously the entire time. here are some things i loved. from soraya jean louis, the idea that POCs are an abstraction – something that cannot be fully encapsulated by the white gaze – but also something which is labeled in v concrete ways. she talked about how cutting/ deconstructing anatomy is not a european practice (picasso learned from egyptian paintings and stylized african representations of the human figure). it is a way for fragmented people to reconstitute/ reassemble themselves. ashley teamer explained how time is not linear in collage, but localized, a collection of moments. it can be stretched or elongated. also compared collage to DJ-ing. collage is broken because that’s the art form, just like scratching records (a blasphemy) is what DJs do because that is their art. finally, i learned about mother catherine seals and the temple of the innocent blood, as well as poverty point (centuries ago, when stonehenge was built and queen nefertiti ruled egypt, indigenous people were building earthen monuments in north louisiana). incredible.

Return to Sender screening at New Orleans Museum of Art

I will be screening ‘Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation’ and giving a talk at the New Orleans Museum of Art on Thursday, June 13th, 3:15-4:15 pm, as part of Kolaj Fest organized by the Kolaj Institute. New Orleans friends, pls join the discussion and come and say hello.

More details here.

recreating history

My IG account was hacked and deleted on April 9th this year. A kind of erasure. I will be recreating history off and on by digging into posts archived elsewhere by friends and collaborators. Here is one from @phototrouveemagazine??

Repost from @phototrouveemagazine:

Spotlight on issue 12 featured artist Mara Ahmed @mara__ahmed. “My art practice focuses on crossing borders and dismantling political and cultural boundaries. I work in multiple disciplines and narrative formats to tell marginalized stories and build community. The personal and political are intertwined in my practice. For example, the experimental short film, Le Mot Juste (2021), which was selected for an exhibition by Chicago’s South Asia Institute, is a fusion of autobiography, film, and dance. It spotlights three languages: Urdu, French, and English. In the analog and digital collage series, This Heirloom (2012-2014) which has been widely exhibited in New York and California, I recreated my own history by using old black and white photographs sourced from my family archive. In conjunction with my NYSCA-funded film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation (2023), I created three collages that subvert the colonial male gaze in found postcards from the British Raj (early 1900s). My aim was to rewrite history by relocating South Asian women from derelict studios, where they had been subjected to Orientalist fantasies, and reconnecting them to their roots. I placed the women in their native cities, adorned with architectural details and built with Indian textiles.”

beautiful sunday in rochester

sunday: lovely breakfast with ted at hydra coffee, lunch at sinbad’s with andrea who is working on a fascinating project about river cultures and collective memory, a visit to ruth and russell’s old home on crosman terrace (russell’s garden looks as splendid as ever), finally, ‘newtown’ the play about sandy hook at geva theatre (thank u laura) with my friend muna, followed by some late night gupshup at java’s.