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How has it been for you as an artist working in Somerville?
My husband and I moved to Cambridge from Milwaukee a couple of years ago and the realtor showed us 11 Miller Street Studios in Somerville as a possibility for my studio as it is close to where we will live. I feel really fortunate that space was available in the building when we moved. I love the location and the community.
You have an exhibit coming up at the Somerville Museum this January It concerns objects from immigrant women that tell a story. You chose to focus only on women, why? Is there a story that stands out for you?
The online archive I am working on (www.amaanatarchive.com) collects stories from all immigrants or 1st generation Americans who have immigrant objects to share. This project is not limited to women.
However, my personal artwork is mostly inspired by immigrant women like me. Mainly because we carry the extra burden as keepers of culture. We experience the pressure to navigate the often clashing expectations of the society we left and the society we live in now. As mothers, we are often seen as the primary medium for keeping cultural roots alive in the family through language, food, customs, religion etc.
Have you read the short story " The Things They Carry" by Tim O'Brien? He concentrates on what grunt soldiers in the Vietnam War carried with them. Often the objects they carry tell the reader a story from deep in their interior. Do you feel objects are charms that break open a flood of memories?
Yes, that is a great book and really captures the power of objects to comfort, to remember, and to carry people through the war. What I particularly took from that book is the notion of two truths- "happening-truth" and "story-truth". The object is more than its utility, it is a memory keeper and it is also myth holder as our imaginations and our emotions mingle with the "happening truth" and becomes a "story- truth"
I also read the book " All that she carried" - a touching true story about slavery. The book revolves around a sack of objects a mother packed for her daughter Ashley when she was sold to a different owner. Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth, embroidered this family history on the sack. What I took away from this book was the power of objects to hold our histories and how important passing the story on to the next generation is. When a story is not recorded, the object is in danger of losing this history and sometimes, its very meaning.
The online archive "Amaanat" (inheritance) is about unlocking and recording memories of migration, cultural and familial roots that are embedded in objects. We hold on to things for more than just their material value. Often the emotional and sentimental value is more powerful, poignant and moving.
You are an interdisciplinary artist. What genres do you work in?
I love material experimentation and often choose materials based on the ideas I explore. Recently, my work has been on paper and fabric and I consider the Amaanat online archive a social practice that gets me out in the community as an empathic listener and a collector of stories. As someone fairly new to the community, this is my way of getting to know the immigrant people around me. Previously, I've worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, fiber arts, sculpture, photo/video- performance, and installation. I consider all of these a material and skill "palette" of sorts and will utilize them when my ideas call for them.
How do you cope with all the violence toward immigrants in this country?
The role of an artist is that of a witness and an amplifier. We absorb our surroundings and make sense of them through our practice. In that sense, the studio becomes a place to process what we see in the world around us. The current violence toward immigrants is alarming and unacceptable. We seem to have forgotten that we are not only just "American" but also human. I recently returned after seeing the Venice Biennale. More than the Biennale, I was struck by a collateral exhibition titled "The only true protest is beauty". The title was inspired by this quote by the activist Phil Ochs. Throughout my time in Venice visiting various exhibitions, I kept returning to this quote. I saw the mingling and juxtaposition of horrific representations of violence and sublime beauty next to each other, with each highlighting the power of the other. I cope with the violence of this world by believing in beauty and putting more of it out there as an artist. Art is so very human and necessary for our humanity. Art makes us pause, think and place ourselves in another's shoes and view point.
Why should we view this exhibit?
This exhibition will include my object inspired artwork, the online archive "Amaanat" and the actual objects in the archive loaned for the exhibition. Amaanat (which means inheritance) is a subversive way of recording first person immigrant stories when our other histories are being sidelined. It is a space to record fast disappearing voices. Immigrant objects are especially vulnerable to erasure as the connection between story and object disappears between two or three generations if not recorded. Our history is being erased and rewritten at a drastic pace right now in classrooms and beyond. BIPOC and immigrant stories are actively neglected or censored. One of my professors in grad school used to say- "people can disagree and dig in their heels on any number of things and refuse to engage with one another but when you put a piece of art in front of them, they suddenly have a third thing to connect over, to speak about, exchange opinions etc."
I am hoping that this exhibition will trigger many conversations on the objects we hold on to, why our histories are important, why people leave their homes, what is lost when stories are lost, the richness of diversity, the power of story in human connection and more.
