Installation
Performance
Film/Video
Painting/Drawing
Photo
Text2Speech
CV
Nowhere, Somewhere & In-Between, 2022
47 keffiyeh scarves
6’11” x 15’6” x 3’
This bridge intends to emphasize a middle point of uncertainty, yet unification of people which is of utmost importance during struggle. Perspectives, positions of privilege/oppression and destinations vary, yet we are linked under a common identity. Just as the bridge can be transposed onto different points. It alludes to a history that provides the backbone for resistance and mobility, while remaining tender, yet difficult to access. It remains high up, slightly out of reach as a thought that must be followed.
Lesson Learned, 2022
13 Ticonderoga pencils, ink, ream of paper
The standard yellow pencil in many US schools sits within the hierarchy of access to publication or being heard. Only one pencil speaks and carries the weight of an entire community. Once the word is written, it is of blue ink, referencing a common fallacy of representative leadership, in which the leader betrays their followers to align with elitist values. The sculpture disrupts the wall as a reference to the meaning of Ticonderoga, a Native American word meaning at the junction of 2 waterways and is composed of 13 pencils due to its associations with bad luck.
Home, 2022
paint, peephole, doorknob, keys in mousetrap apparatus
80 x 36 x 15 in
An inaccessible home both due to its illusory door made of paint and key in mousetrap, the installation intends to illustrate the fabrication of home as a violent mirage, while also hiding an unknown being behind such ideological walls. Ironically, this being must know something more as it has found a way to reside behind these walls.
A Banned Surveillance, 2018
single-channel video loop
vimeo.com/685038927
Displaying footage of participants’ eyes from Trump’s Banned Countries, the work brings unwelcome and surveilled communities to the US. Different formats include a human sized projection or large monitor to interrogate scale as a determinant for the difference between intimacy and surveillance. Exhibited in Times Square, UC Berkeley and The Jewish Museum in response to the exhibition Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running.
EAST - - - WEST., 2021
two-channel video installation (color, sound; 3:25), gaffer tape, reflective road markers
dimensions variable
vimeo.com/564660462
A performance depicting a character undergoing violence first plays on the east (right) screen. The character then flees to the West (left) to live a “happy” assimilated life. With a yellow dashed line indicating ability to cross, the character switches lanes to travel in the opposite direction; the character cannot return to its origin due to the solid yellow line, a reference to my family’s migration to the States in which the reconfiguring and questioning of our identity began.
A Migration/96.5, 2021
surveillance mirror, iHome, iPod, audio of my father’s liquor store in San Francisco, local radio & classical Arabic music (38:42 min) 103 x 11.8 x 11.8 in
After immigrating to the United States in the 80s, my father opened a liquor store, an oxymoron considering his muslim values. In this store, located across from section 8 housing, now gentrified, my father installed surveillance systems as well as a radio that would play smooth jazz or artists such as Sade. The installation plays recordings from his liquor store when I would work weekends and breaks beginning from age 13, as well as actual audio from the local 96.5 KOIT station and popular classical Arabic music. When working, I always had my iPod to play games or listen to my own music.
Sitting in the blue chair while the world burns, 2021
spray paint, popcorn bucket, popcorn, adhesive
41” x 20” x 19”
In 2014, Israelis gathered on top of a hill in Sderot to watch bombs drop on Gaza. This was not the first time and has not been the last with this tradition continuing today. The colors allude to the privileged colors in the scenario with the blue seat for the Israelis with this entertainment being provided for by the US.
How many jellybeans are in the jar?, 2023
Jellybeans, glass jar and lid, acrylic, inkjet print on cardstock
An optical illusion referencing the children’s game awarding a prize for the correct answer. While one candy is visible, there are in fact many more in the jar, begging viewers to question the obvious and alternatives to face value. Colors chosen allude to the power dynamic of red and blue, a color language developed by me, where red is oppressed and blue is hegemonic.
BDS IDF, 2021
cotton t-shirt, acrylic, paper price tag
Self-produced replica Israel Defense Forces t-shirt created with the intent to sell and donate funds to Palestinian victims of Israeli occupation violence. In an effort demonstrate a loophole to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, the work questions the importance of symbolic imagery over material, financial impact, a common negotiation under late stage capitalism.
Protein Filament, 2018
artists’ hair, plexiglass, wire stands, and acrylic
10” x 8” x 8”
Collaboration with Kamal Jahi.
This installation references minority populations being turned into studied subjects to be exhibited.