The Khayamiyya Monument
The Khayamiyya Monument, 2017
The Khayamiyya Monument is an anti-war participatory sculpture inscribed with writings of Arab and African female im/migrants and female U.S. veterans critical of their time in combat during the Wars on Terror.
Over many months, I worked with the ESL program in a Brooklyn community center to collect writings about exile from Yemeni, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, and Moroccan students. I would introduce a line of poetry about displacement from a female perspective for us to interpret together in Arabic. The women were asked to freely respond, in writing, from their personal experiences. U.S. female veterans from Iraq Veterans Against the War then responded to some of the im/migrant women’s writings, remotely. I traced excerpts of all these writings, in both Arabic and English, onto canvas to create a severed tent.
The ESL center and I collaborated to hold a women-only open mic to present the piece. Over 100 women attended this event and read heartfelt stories of war, exile, and resilience, with the monument as a backdrop.
This Body is Water
Gismee Maya 1, detail, 2017
Gismee Maya 2, 2018
In This Body Is Water/ Gismee Maya 1 (Arabic phonetic spelling), the space was shaped by figurative cut-outs and draped fabric and canvas strips, like a waterfall or river, to convey displacement, grieving, and renewal. The leaping figure floats above organza pieces with my own and collected Arabic and English writings of immigrant women, stitched together and layered.
This Body Is Water/ Gismee Maya 2 was a durational installation, dealing with the migration of humans fleeing for their lives accross the Mediterranean. Blue signified an emotional space of vulnerability, a liminal space of displacement, and sea water- the connective tissue among continents. During the six weeks of the show, I spent several meditative hours in the gallery writing on the blue walls. I sourced from this partial list of people who have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2018/06/19/TheList.pdf