Interview.

Monday 24th April 2019 (questions sent via email, answers received via email. In order to avoid Western academic standards, no edits were made to her answers.)

What is your background?

I am a multi-disciplinary artist of Kurdish-Syrian descent. I was born and educated in the town of Amoude, Syria.  I live in Canada since 2001 and work in Montreal, Canada. I had my MFA in Studio Arts/open media from Concordia University. I have 2 kids, 7 and 8.

What is your practice?

In my work I explores social themes, which directly reflects the political aspect of major issues related to the lived experiences. my work is related to persecution, displacement and memory. My research creation combines sound, performance, textile, installation and video/moving images, practices to create intimate site-specific sculptural installation environments that engage the senses (sight, sound, and touch.)  In my work I breach the divide between artist, art and public, creating an active space of participation, exchange, understanding and storytelling. I wish to provoke changes through my art. I wish we change through what is dividing us and what leads to hatred and racism - these are places that can offer a space where real connection can happen without conflict.

For example, in one of my past work, '“When Spirits Awaken”, it is important that women of my generation use our voices to reverse the cycle of past generations who were raised to believe that this sacrifice was positive. Moreover, we have to take our proper place in the world and stand up against war. Using communication, travel, stories and various media, I am working to make sure that future children will have better human rights, while raising awareness about the dangers of war especially for traditional or uneducated women. As artists, we can raise awareness by asking questions about the political situation and showing past and present histories that previously may not have been discussed.

The effects of immigration and war have influenced who I am, and they therefore play an essential role within my art practice.

How do you work?

If you ask me as an artist, I don’t choose my themes, mostly it is a need that leads my creation theme and inhabit my mind till the creation happens and continue its life. The need through remembering and daily life, and the present problems we face. For example, during my pregnancy and leaving my past home there was an urgent sense of dealing with the idea of home and belonging. I have created two pieces, “Home Songs” and “Home Skin” with each pregnancy.

If you ask about the technical part, I work with many forms and my final work is usually interdisciplinary. I usually let my instinct guide me, I like organic and spontaneous process. I am attached to the idea of letting the art come and be born while I search, and imagination comes to life. sometimes I have plans, but most of the time they change while working. The work must have its own force as well that makes it alive and stand for itself.

Why do you do what you do?

I don’t wish to pass this world silently, with my art and along with other artists like me I wish to make a difference and change in our thinking starting with social change. Artists take important part in observing and predicting coming danger to reflect is part of the process of my work. I see the suffering we are exposed to; it is much more obvious than ever with the social media and all open resources, the silent war we lived as Kurds, and even through the recent war there are so many things to highlight. we need to work and stop the extremist monsters as they grow. I believe that art offers a safe place for difficult issues to be discussed and shared. The art with its soft power of the aesthetic it offers a place to focus on connection on human level and focus on the positive outcome.

For example, in Behind Walls, using oral history for me at the beginning of my career there was a real need. I used stories of Stateless Kurds to tell their stories and daily challenges; it was urgent to talk about these people who never had a chance to talk. I didn’t want to tell the stories only through my voice I had to have the power of their suffering to come to the public directly. They didn’t need my voice; I offered a creation that was the environment to thread the rest of the related parts of the lived experiences and I offered a reflection on the fragile nature of the map related to daily life and memories. When I showed this project for the first time, my thinking was only around these Kurds’ stories, but after showing the work second and third time I had developed the theory not only around the idea of maps, but also the use of oral history in visual arts. In addition, I connected the project to many other tales of people around the world, or even to the stories of aboriginal people and changing the demographical, culture and even the names of places on the map, here in Canada, or Australia and many other places similar to the place that my work highlighted, to ears memory of places and how the map might fail in relation to daily life. When we offer one example in art it is not specific most of the time, it is a starting point to the universal related stories. History repeats itself everywhere, art offers what we learnt from it.

in regards to the art world, how do you make yourself visible?

It is a challenge and very stressful process to be visible in the art world; I work much more than my colleague artists as an immigrant and as a mother similar to other artists we need time to understand the place, in term of languages, build related experience to the place, connection, even to find resources and how to do it. It took a long journey and passed difficult time to be able to continue. But the hard work was a way to be visible and only what I want to do made it more challenging but at the end somehow you have to be seen as we exist, and our art is real. As visible minority especially at the first few years of my career and the theme we chose to work with were somehow excluding us from the rest of the art community. In Montreal, there was only one intercultural gallery that will welcome issues similar to my work. I keep looking for places to show the work I do, it takes a lot of time that I wish to put in actual art making, but it is a part of the system here. In the past few years I received funding that offered me the freedom to work and leave the side job, I become a full-time artist and was able to continue exploring creation with communities. I do receive invitations, which is good, but sometimes the curators put labels on categories that might be my interest in certain project, I feel like we need to give audiences and artwork the chance to relate and find their own meaning. 

do you feel your identity affects your place within institutional space?

Yes, at the beginning of my study in the art school it was rare to find a place for a Middle-eastern people, they were mostly white and mostly female, if there was a colour in the room usually it was Iranian or Asian, you could smell the political affect within the institution. Don’t forget as well the economic fact related to art and difficulty to make a living keep many away from art, especially middles eastern culture. 

The obvious part was through people who run and teach, you could see main leading figures in the institutions are white too, professors, or professionals and so on. Very typical image of the past; however, now there is a desire for change here and inclusion is a part of the act, they started to bring aboriginal people, and this is the first step, maybe one day we all will have equal chances.

Who or what gets remembered?

I always say mothers remember their far away children and focus on the sick ones, as a displaced mother and artist, I think of my past home and remember the injustice I witnessed. Many issues are not solved, and the violence is extreme now. I collect memories of the past and of the present. My remembering is not nostalgic it is this memory that serves the present and the future, about what is that we missed what brought us here, what we have learnt. We remember our loss, their values and ideas, the way they imagined the world as a peaceful place and equal for all; witnessing the harsh reality I try not to forget the utopian ideas that carries the abilities to reimagine a better future.

WHEN MARGINALISED people speak up they are met with distrust- why is this and who do you feel is heard or seen?

Part of my recent research creation is breaking stereotypes; I know what politicians do to create the images/stereotype to stay in power using medias or use internal fears of human to create the distance from the marginalized. But I don’t claim it is the only way, we need a real education here, we need to create an understanding, to reveal the knowledge that exist in many forms to help us live in more harmony. We need to rebuild the identity based on our connection and our own values not based on a place or the trips, or simply ones’ culture. We need to tell more stories, decolonize the culture, we need a proper place for female in our society the way we deserve without threat or looked at as objects. We have to work collectively, catch each other’s hands, find the ones who support us get them closers to the core of issues like racism or to face their own fears, help them understand each other and build together. No one lives isolated, if a war is in Syria, it will echo the disaster everywhere. War travels like food; if you eat Syrian food here you have to know about the war.  

What about womanhood and specifically as a WEST ASIAN woman? does this affect how you are seen within institutional space?

I will just add that the women space for female artist is still growing and needs to be changed. For a marginalized woman of colour who all the privilege of her colleague have not we have very limited access; we are excluded. 

Do you reject the natural and possibly orientalist role and stereotype of West Asian women just by being an artist?

Yes, I also have to say we don’t have to credit the feminist academic movement for all changes and our thinking. They have done great, but where we lived in rural places in the middle-east each woman had a daily straggle that made their own revolution in many ways and still do. When they chose to work, to study, or even chose their own partners breaking the cultural or religious roles in order to have their own freedom and dignity; a lot to be done in relation to the body of the female and her own way to deal with as it is still conservative culture. When I came here my past knowledge of feminist was only through the way how the Syrian regime used it as propaganda and very typical, women work, and union to do home craft. 

The past idea of feminist and how media present it was creating a rigid image that is far from what real feminist are; only certain people had the privilege to the real movement either through education or being in the capital cities. I was surprised many times from the image here how we were seen, getting closer to some French friends who had no knowledge about where we came form; they usually know only what the media offers. Now, it is even worse, the female body, behind refugee camp bares, or bleeding body, a woman that carries a dead child, easy to access body, a victim body and so on... well this is part of the reality unfortunately. But what they miss the great power many of these women have, to be able to cross these many borders to save themselves or their kids, or to survive under siege. Or to take a part in activism they did risking their lives, being tortured, or buried alive; there are many images that media don’t offer. I feel that my art tries to enlighten these powerful images of survivors, what these powerful people can offer to the hosting society. What is needed to reveal this power? I will give 2 examples: I met one Syrian woman who spent 1.5 year in the Syrian’s regime prison and witnessed her 4 years old daughter get tortured, and herself as well, she had much more complex story, but she survived and still getting treatment here in Canada. At the same time, she is eager with her limited education and health capacity to learn the language and work. She insists to show her 3 kids a good example in their new life here. The other example is the Yazidi women who have witnessed the genocide and lost their families and homes, they were captured and humiliated and severely abused and raped. Many of these women tried to escape that injustice if they fail, they tried again and again many of them finally escaped. These women created the most powerful image of the desire to live and not accepting the injustice they show us a real deal of resistance, so as an artist, woman, Kurdish or Syrian, Canadian immigrant whatever title I have the daily experience of my life, my children’s, my past home, and present one is the highlight of my work. I refuse the ready-made to identify or to be framed with one single still identity, I am a person who learn and feel everyday change and react to it and my identity does so, there is a lot on my plate with many others who share similar value to not pass this live as passenger we have a choice to make and a work to be done, for and with our kids.