Working on "What Can I Say?" with Chris Jagmin and Safwat Saleem

Last year, Chris, Safwat and I started thinking about what a show together might be about. Since we all come from our own "margins", we have thought about how hard it is to express our thoughts, opinions and perspectives about a variety of current socially relevant issues. A brief description of the show:

"It’s true that we all belong to our tribes and yet, most of us feel like we don’t belong. How can this be? Is there any room to talk, to listen, and to build our circles of belonging? Our voices can’t begin to examine every American experience but this exhibit offers our uniquely personal American experiences of fears, personal marginalization, complicity, memories, anxiety, love, humor, and our expressions of humanity. Our stories examine and question our simultaneous roles of colluding with our systems and being exploited by them."

I’m not an innocent bystander. It seems these times have outed a racial divide that has simmered under the surface for centuries, in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. Of late, I’ve felt called to look at the roots of my own white privilege. What cues and assumptions indoctrinated my own habits as a person born with white skin?
​
I began to think about the invisible, insidious cues that were planted in my early life. What were the subtle messages that were ingrained in my own psyche - all working to assure the maintenance of our hold on the white structure in this country. I began to think about words that I grew up with - rhymes, lyrics, pledges. I thought about images in my own home - food packaging, table linens, religious icons - innocently employed, but damaging all the same. 

The work I'm creating for this show attempts to visually layer these cues - mimicking the confusion of these impressions that still float around in my mind and body. 

"TRESPASSES" - Vintage family embroidered cloth, new embroidery

Work in Progress - "WHITE WASH" - Hand carved Ivory soap, vintage family table cloth, new embroidery