Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.
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☺️ Hello!
Table of Contents:
👋🏽 Hello and Ramadan Mubarak!
⚙️ Project Updates
🖼️ Exhibitions
🌳 Prompts + Public Art
🗣️ Public Programming
📖 Teaching
1. 👋🏽 Hello and Ramaḍān Mubarak!
In early February, I soft-launched my talk show at Becoming NEW: Artists on Change and Transformation at the Great Hall at Cooper Union for the New Museum. It was really cute, and I had a lot of fun. More episodes are coming soon! Thank you, Morgan, for encouraging me to take myself seriously enough to make this happen. I have always wanted a short-run talk show, and 2025 is the year I do all the weird stuff I want to do, which is why I have also been designing kurtas and bookcases, making terrible drawings, and playing really terrible music. I have always believed that I needed to be an artist with a clear trajectory of doing one thing only, but the way my neurology is set up, I do the the things that bring me joy regardless of their prestige or visibility. As my 40th birthday approaches, my only goal is to be more fully myself which in so many ways is freeform and enthusiatic and easily overtaken by small interesting things … like that time a few weeks ago when I feel in love with Pick’s Theorem.
In the past few weeks, I have spent some time in Vancouver and Montreal installing and giving talks. I was able to reconnect with an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in over six years, and it was quite the ride to try to squeeze in all of our life updates into a lunch meal! Thank you to Dark Opacities Lab (hi Balbir!!!!) for having Maryam Kashani and me in February! Despite our very emotional conversation about death, grief, surveillance, and accountability, it was so much fun to be in such a warm space. Concordia, bring me back to Montreal!
In two weeks, it will be the second anniversary of my nan’s death. I hope that lady is doing well. She is now with her two daughters and husband and there is some relief in knowing that. In January, during the LA fires, which Alhamdulillah, my nan’s South Central home was saved from, my mother and I began to clean out her room. My mom found a bunch of family reunion booklets with addresses, photographs, family mottos, and recipes. With that new information, I have built up this speculative family tree of over 400 people going as far back as Scotland, the origin of my paternal family’s enslavers. I also got my hands on two thick books about this family and am looking forward to traveling to Anne Arundel in the winter to look at city records and visit their mansions.