Like many, I hold feelings of deep despair and anger since the most recent escalation of brutality against Arabs and the blatant attempts by many in power to downplay ongoing atrocities. These feelings influenced me greatly during my residency, and the subsequent explosion of the painting medium through this collection of sculptures explores the scatteredness, community connection, and political alienation that has coloured the last six months. There is steadfastness there as well – a hallmark of diaspora – and variations of pattern based on the keffiyeh that has wrapped itself around the forms and thoughts of all my ancestors. 

The works are predominately based on the concept of the shroud, which can be defined as either a verb: ‘to hide something by covering or surrounding it’, or a noun: ‘a length of cloth or enveloping garment in which a dead person is wrapped for burial’. There is no way for me to talk about the past months without imagery or influence of the shroud featuring heavily – we have borne daily witness to the mounting deaths of women, men, and children. The shroud is something we carry with us both in mourning the victims and in hiding our grief, burying it within ourselves, to avoid accusations of ‘politicising’ social spaces and ‘threatening’ the cultural safety of others.

In my residency work, I experimented with different textiles before settling on muslin cloth, which evokes a subtle movement and delicacy even when mixed with clay and plaster. I am largely self-taught and follow my own rules of execution when playing with and combining media. In these sculptures, I used resin and twine; experimented and failed. I shredded my arms and legs while cutting and molding chicken wire. I sewed and painted almost exclusively between the hours of 2 and 5 am, while listening to the news.

The resulting work asks questions about how we might stay true to our creative practice in this moment, with feelings of mutual distrust between ourselves and the systems that sustain art and cultural production. I have been on both ends of the cultural safety policy trend: involved in both writing it and reprimanded by it. There are certain rules we as Arabs are currently being asked to follow about reaction, curation, and construction that demand we hide too much of ourselves and what we know to be true in order to be assured safety and inclusion.

In reflecting on my own experience and the oppression felt in our communities the sculptures follow the shroud in its journey through trauma and migration, indicating multiple forms, paths, and iterations. The result is at once absorbing and unnerving, reflecting a personal and social responsibility to receive, witness, and honour collective grief.