“I promised you I wouldn’t returned. And I returned. I promised I would not die missing you. And I died... I used to lie from severity of the truth, and thank god I lied.” [Nizar Qabbani]
This short film (series) is an extension of an experimental narrative form I began with “Hey Mama” except in this film the narrative relies solely on the visual component since no story is being voiced over. Instead, the story is hand-written in different places, in a burning cigarette, a foot in heels, an arm, a shoulder, her back, a photography. It is the story of a love that has, despite its promise, found its end. The promise burns away in a cigarette and is rubbed and washed away from the skin. It is a promise that was carried in the body, a love so in need of itself that even its end drags on and on. As long as the departure is drawn out, the end of love never truly happens. It suffers and suffers, but never resolves itself. She waits and waits but never receives “the last letter.” Instead, an old one appears, which she reads over and over. It is a visual struggle against the end of love, a love that for her was life itself. And if that life has ended, and she has no other sources of love in her life, what does she do? As Alice Walker writes in one of her short stories, “When she was finished running away, when she just went on, what would she put in his place?”
2021
2020
poetry&film.
hey, mama.
The short film visually explores the contents of a letter that a daughter writes but cannot send to her mother. It hints to the tragedies of her mother's family in Syria, and the tragedies in their own relationship with each other. The letter is a farewell, more than a letter penned in hope of reconciliation. They are beyond that possibility. It is a visual and verbal grievance for what has been lost, and what can never be recovered.
autobiographical & calligraphy work
to love a Palestinian.
In Gaza, Mothers are writing the names of their children, along with their blood type and age, all over their bodies in case they need to be identified or rescued without the presence of their parent. Even as a performance, this was incredibly painful. I was once madly in love and married to a palestinian and lived in the west bank. In this piece, I am trying to understand what it is like to be in this position, to have to express and hold your love in such a terrible way.
project I. — caesura
project II — تحت السماء
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