Process video of making the monument
Contribution by Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi poet
Friends gather at the community center launch of the monument, 2017
photo credit: Claudia Zamora
Detail of veteran’s writing. Photo credit: Jennifer Coard
I install the monument at the community center for our opening, 2017
Photo credit: Claudia Zamora
I traced the women’s collected writings in Arabic and English onto fabric. This physical engagement with their language helped me to process and connect with the content.
Writing by Nicole Goodwin, a Brooklyn poet who fought on the ground in Iraq. She offered this poem for The Khayamiyya Monument.
by Sofos, a Yemeni woman I worked with in Brooklyn. Translation (by Emma Ali): Those who live war through the news and TV are not like those who live it while it’s happening, with the fear of its sound and the humiliation.
Excerpt of a poem by Mirna Haidar, a Lebanese woman (from South Lebanon) who worked with me in Brooklyn. Translation by the author: There you are… familiar to my journey…/ An entrance (home entrance) to exile…/ Where people are bare…/ There you are… painful…/ A stabbing longing (for home)…/ A touch of fire… (the burn of homesickness)/ It is you…/ My exile…
by Leyya Tawil, a Palestinian American dancer, who offered this writing at a workshop in Detroit.
Excerpt of a poem by Angie Hanes, a U.S. veteran who fought in Iraq. She offered this poem for The Khayamiyya Monument.