Earlier in February, I was contacted by Mariam Alkhateeb, a 20-year old poet and medical student from Gaza, to add her poem to the Warp & Weft Archive. I was immensely moved. I collaborated with my friend Mazin M Hameed and together we translated the poem into English from the original Arabic. I asked my dear friend Ahyeong Kim to read the poem and an audio recording was published very quickly on February 26th. Mariam is now trying to leave Gaza along with her family. As the bombings and ground invasion come closer and closer to Rafah, it is a matter of life and death. May I urge my friends to support in any way they can – not just by liking and sharing this post (pls do), but also by contributing whatever is possible here. Thank you.
Category: politics
recap of my presentation at VSW
beautiful video synopsis of my presentation at the @visualstudiesworkshop on march 28th by marili vaca @democratandchronicle. thank u for all ur support genae and marili <3
Repost from @democratandchronicle:
Mara Ahmed @mara__ahmed spoke at the Visual Studies Workshop @visualstudiesworkshop in Mar. 28, 2024 to discuss her most recent film ‘Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation’ which will be premiering May 4 at ROC Cinema @roccinema
Ahmed used archival video, film and lantern slides provided by the Visual Studies Workshop. She also created a space that allowed for open discussion and dialogue.
Ahmed’s documentaries center marginalized voices and focus on communities grappling with nuanced experiences surrounding racism, colonization and Islamophobia.
Video by Marili Vaca @marili.photography / Democrat and Chronicle
meeting at hydra coffee
yesterday at hydra coffee, zemeta’s, and basha mediterranean eatery with these beautiful friends <3
my talk at VSW
we had to bring in extra chairs to fit everyone tonight at the visual studies workshop. it was more than a full house. so many people i love and admire in the audience. a presentation about colonial postcards, internal colonialism, police brutality, and white feminism, with strong connections to palestine and the ongoing genocide in gaza. a question for the audience about how to develop a decolonial feminist lens and then a group discussion to figure out more humane ways of ‘looking’ at one another.
thank u hernease davis and the @visualstudiesworkshop
rochester, i love u. too many incredible people live here.
Visual Studies Workshop: In Dialogue with Mara Ahmed
I am thrilled to announce that I will be coming to Rochester, NY, on March 28th to present a dialogue between my work on colonial postcards and the Visual Studies Workshop’s film and lantern slide archives!
This will be an exciting conversation where we will see clips from my new film, about the aftershocks of colonialism, juxtaposed against film clips from Rochester in the 1970s that talk about police control and violence. We will make connections to current political power systems and pay special attention to the representations of women from the global south and white feminism. I make a lot of presentations, but this is the first time I have engaged with an institution’s archives and located my work within that framework.
Pls join us and add to the convo. You can register here.
Here is more info from the VSW’s website:
Mara Ahmed is an interdisciplinary artist and award winning activist filmmaker. Mara’s documentaries center marginalized voices and have focused on communities grappling with nuanced experiences around racism, colonization and islamophobia. She will present a program that incorporates her work with postcards, lantern slides and films she has researched and chosen from the VSW archive. Mara will also present clips from her latest film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation, which was awarded a NYSCA film grant, and will premiere at a future time in Rochester.
The evening will culminate in a discussion with Mara Ahmed facilitated by Hernease Davis, the Assistant Curator of Education and Public Programs. This program will also be livestreamed via twitch.tv.
international women’s day
on international women’s day, with some kickass women of color, conspiring to overturn genocidal systems and suffuse the world with palestinian poetry <3
Feminists speak up
Out of the 1.9 million people displaced in Gaza, close to one million are girls and women. An estimated 9,000 Palestinian women have been killed by Israeli forces so far. That’s a rate of 63 women killed every day. There are an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, with over 180 giving birth daily, without any anesthesia or meds or fully functional hospitals. An estimated 37 mothers are killed daily, leaving their families devastated and their children with diminished protection — at least 17,000 children in the Gaza Strip are unaccompanied or have been separated from their relatives since the beginning of the genocide on October 7th. There is no food or water and most of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. A man-made famine is setting in. At least 20 people have died from malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza. The time to speak up is now.
screening at montauk library
great screening at montauk library yesterday afternoon. small audience but most excellent questions, for example, the role played by caste when engaging with representations of indian women in colonial postcards. after the screening, lunch at streetfood on the green. it was a beautiful sunny day. will have to come back soon.
Wangechi Mutu’s work
I have loved Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu‘s beautiful and unsettling work for decades now, and I had missed her solo exhibition ‘Intertwined’ at the New Museum, so it was a thrill to see it in New Orleans @neworleansmuseumofart. “Representing the full breadth of her practice, this exhibition encompasses painting, collage, drawing, sculpture, film, and performance. Mutu first gained acclaim for her collage-based practice exploring camouflage, transformation, and mutation. She extends these strategies to her work across various media, developing hybrid, fantastical forms that fuse mythical and folkloric narratives with layered sociohistorical references… Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions.“ I loved the Subterranean series (a stunning fusion of woman and nature) and was moved by Mutu’s work on the Rwanda genocide which is displayed on a ‘wounded wall’ full of bullet holes rubbed with blood-red pigment. Reminded me of Gaza.
A Thin Wall in Ahmedabad, India
Screenings of A Thin Wall are coming up in Ahmedabad, India! Pls attend if you are in the area. Repost from @arthshila_ahmedabad:
Arthshila Ahmedabad’s Film Showcase this week features A Thin Wall by Mara Ahmed
A Thin Wall is a documentary about memory, reconciliation, and the Partition of India. It focuses on a unique event but derives lessons that remain urgently relevant today.
23 Feb 2024 | 5:30 pm
24 – 25 Feb 2024 | 11:30 am
Venue: Arthshila Ahmedabad, 2-G, opposite Ahmedabad Management Association, Panjrapol, Ambawadi – 380015
Return to Sender coming to Montauk
Screening of ‘Return to Sender’ and community discussion at Montauk Library on March 3rd, 2:30-4pm. This event is free and open to the public. See you in beautiful Montauk, the eastern-most tip of Long Island.
A Thin Wall in Islamabad
Ready for a post screening discussion and Q&A this morning at 8:30am, following a screening of A Thin Wall at @theblackholeislamabad where it was 6:30pm. Great convo with Osama Malik, who made this event happen, followed by brilliant questions from the audience. They had to do with nation states, porous borders, the imagining of alternative futures, and my own personal views about the partition. TBH is a non-profit that strives to be an open-to-all educational and cultural space in Islamabad. Such a pleasure to connect with incredible people and places in Pakistan
Forgot to take a screenshot when on Zoom, but here is the YouTube video
Check out the stunning chalk art in Islamabad
George Abraham on the imaginary
Support Nadine’s GoFundMe
As we watch daily war crimes unfold in Gaza, it’s sometimes hard not to feel helpless – not to be able to stop the atrocities or help people on the ground in a direct way. Here is one such opportunity. I have been posting poems by Palestinian poets every other day since December. One of those beautiful poems, Whispers of Resistance, was written by Gaza poet and writer Nadine Murtaja when she was 18 years old. It was read by my friend Zoe Lawlor. Nadine is 20 years old now. She was studying at the school of dental medicine in Gaza when everything turned to dust last October. She wants desperately to leave Gaza and continue her studies in Egypt. She has put together this gofundme campaign while living in hell and under constant attack. Pls consider donating anything you can and share widely. It’s a way to intercede directly, assure her safety, and make her dreams come true.
Here is the link.
[This is the picture Nadine sent me for the poetry archive, before Gaza was decimated by the Israeli army and its mercenaries]
Ahmed launches Warp & Weft Palestine
From Mariam Sandhu: My dear friend, fellow artist, activist, filmmaker and humanitarian Mara Ahmed has expanded a project started in 2020 entitled “Warp & Weft” to highlight the voices of the Palestinian people and the horrific situation that is unfolding in front of the entire world’s eyes. It is a compilation of Palestinian poems given voice by fellow activists and artists. I am just one ordinary human asked to participate – join us in raising the voices of the Palestinian people by following her IG account @Warpandweftarchive
Read the article by Rajesh Barnabas in the Anarchist Federation
