Poetry & Audiovisual
This project brings together years of poetry and experimental audiovisual work. The themes vary and travel through a wide-range of sociopolitical and intimately personal subjects. This year, I have begun selectively curating this work for an upcoming poetry collection and visual collection of autobiographical work.
Zen, Zendegi, Azadi
Honoring the intimate journey towards interior and exterior freedom.
To Love a Palestinian
The concept behind this video: Recently I came across a post that described how mothers were writing the names of their children all over their bodies so that they could be identified if their bodies weren't found in one piece. I went over that image again and again in my mind until I decided to act it out. In this montage, I imagine I am back with the Palestinian man I loved and lived with once in the Nablus. I imagine what it would feel like if I were in a position where I had to write his name over and over again, along with his blood type and where he was from. Even as a performance, it was so incredibly painful. To make this montage as honest as it can be, I mixed the painting scenes with real footage recorded from our time together in the past.
Poetry
Between the woman you witness
and the woman that lives in me
is a god you haven’t met
spinning on the ferris wheel
of my tired mind, reading
from the book of sins I wrote And never lived.
my exile—caramel in his mouth
and I found my prayers
floating candy wraps
returned to me in the wind
answering this howl for touch
with a god that writes desire
into a body that can’t move.
I could lie my way to a lover
in the dress of untruths I am desired
what use is the naked word
if it only give me my own company
to touch.
Collage & Sound
This piece is part of a new series that works with audio narration — that is, narrative that relies on sound without words spoken, and on visual memories without written exposition.