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Artist Statement

Artist Statement

From My Grandmother’s Hands

My practice engages questions of identity, community, healing, and hope, challenging viewers to consider issues of social justice and human rights. I’m a writer and visual artist working in photography, video, sculpture and other media. My work creates an intense connection with the viewer by incorporating a variety sensory elements. Growing up in multiple identities as a queer, mixed-ethnicity, diasporan American, I’m passionate about amplifying diverse voices that inspire change, particularly highlighting the role that women play in the survival and evolution of cultures and communities.  Increasingly, my work connects to the ancestral while envisioning and embodying a futurist perspective on the complexity of our humanity and the creative forces we gather in community.

My work uses historical motifs, objects, rituals and places to anchor visions of the future in my ancestral culture. I often work in collaboration with others to create a shared vision. Recent work has used these cultural markers in an installation of amulet sculptures incorporating created and found objects that hold ancient signifiers and memories, videos of shared cultural rituals that access past, present, and future at once, and portraits of people in the SWANA (South West Asian and North African) diaspora in conversation about our visions for an alternative future where creativity, culture, and community flourish. These portraits are detailed, often surreal images of the people, places, and objects that are part of both our shared culture and our diversity. Other recent works are directly influenced by the futurist writing of science fiction authors like Octavia Butler, Rivers Solomon, and Becky Chambers. My work stimulates connection and empathy in the viewer, among the most important experiences for transformational thinking that envisions positive futures. This informs my practice and my belief that through art we create images that order our world, both reflecting and constructing our reality. So, through images we may also begin to imagine and construct different futures for ourselves.