We shifted our homes back in 2023. It was like leaving behind a breathing organism and entering into another one. In my work, I am exploring ways to express memory and space through some objects from our previous home. I am exploring some of these questions when I think of that home: What does my previous house mean to me now? What are the memories that I strongly associate with that home? What are some of the memories I have of that place that is enclosed in objects like mementos? I am creating a space with some instances of the memories I had from home with which the audience can interact.

Statement:

You are invited. It is a Saturday evening, and you have been invited to a cozy, warm, and soft corner of my mind. 

We shifted our homes in the year 2023. It was like leaving behind a breathing organism and entering into a new one. In my work, I am exploring how my memory persists in some of the objects that I brought along from our previous home. 

I explore the concept of home and belonging from different lenses. How did my home let me grow, how did it make me realize bits of my identity, and how was it more than just a physical structure that I have been seeing from my early teenage years?

As you move through the space, consider the significance of the objects and allow them to weave together the delicate threads of discovery, nostalgia, and longing. The space you are entering is a breathing organism where you can feel free to move around and immerse all your senses while you peek into my past enclosed inside.

Central Concept and how the body, space, audience interaction, and time are in service to it.

For 7 - 10 minutes, my audience was free to move around the space that was decorated with things that reminded me of my previous home. In this body of work, the audience’s body is used as a guest who is welcomed in a space that consists of the things that remind me of my home. The space is utilized in a way that is similar to my own previous house. The audience is making use of their senses to observe the space. Their auditory senses are used to hear a soft piece of music that is slow, distant, and nostalgic. The song is juxtaposed with a compilation of shots that I have captured over the past years of our previous house. This projected compilation would aid in my aim to transport my audience to my previous home. 

To make my audience interaction more immersive, I invited the people to drink chai that is being offered to the audience on the counter next to the installation. Making and serving chai is representative of one of the core memories that I have from that home. It was a way to let myself spend some time with myself. 

While the audience was free to move around the place, they will also be free to read the small description along with the memoirs. The description would also help them read what the object means to me. I intend to put the description accompanying the object for them to speak for me while I am not standing with the object itself.

Some of the objects from my performance:

Blue-green lacework frame: I think about the day when my sister, Dania sat with Abbu to weave the laces and stick the pattern to the frame’s borders. I remember how their heads bobbed into each other as their fingers made the pattern. She was decorating the frame for her Art homework. They chose our picture from the zoo and kept it inside. Whenever I looked at it standing at the side of the table in my parent’s bedroom, I would miss going out with my family to the zoo. That day we saw a lion, tigers, giraffes and different kinds of birds. I was little and so were my sisters and we felt the energies of the animals in the cage. In the picture, our whole family stood, except my father who captured the picture.

‘Alif’ Sufi painted canvas: In this house, I had a chance to explore a lot of mediums. It was like blowing life into a lot of the ideas that I had in my mind. Expressing myself using creative means helped me begin a new journey in my life. What I remember of this painting are some things: I painted it when everyone was asleep after Fajr, it was one of my first tries with acrylics, and it is incomplete since I still haven’t painted in the space for Alif with the golden paint.

White storage box: In our previous home, I realized that I was a keeper of things. Since I am quick to associate memorable instances with bits and pieces of material I use or come across, I see value or even a little bit of potential in everything I have. So I would keep those things to myself. I developed this habit over time. When I used to go for a walk around the park I would stumble across anything beautiful to me and I would keep it with me like feathers, wood bark, and petals. When I was crafting a craft, I would never let go of pieces of paper of varying texture simply because I saw potential in them. This box holds a lot of those scraps and pieces that hold memory.

Geometric design: Once I had a chance to follow Samia Mian in making geometric designs. I loved being engrossed in the process of making geometric patterns. That month I made 3 patterns. I loved using a spoon to rub and imprint the pencil marks from a butter sheet to a sheet of canson paper. I remember hunching over my artwork to the point that I was only a few inches close to the paper while painting inside the intricate design. I spent hours on it. I remember how it felt when the wind hit my drenched face and arms. The air felt cool, and so was the palette I chose for one of my favorite geometric designs.

Paint small tins: When we were younger, we didn’t like plain walls that much. Convincing our parents to allow us to experiment with the blank walls with paints was difficult. But we succeeded. We painted our blank walls with murals, flowers, and patterns we envisioned on the wall. We sketched the drawings we had conjured in our heads onto the walls with pencil. With constant trial and error, we eventually got the best version of the drawing onto the walls. Then it would be time to choose the color of the paint to paint with. And then we would let the wall dry. It would completely change the way we used to see the wall we painted on. But every time we changed the look of those walls we would feel closer to the place we were living in. It was like our handprints on those walls.