[extended] Family Gathering

2018-2020

Change is an inevitable part of life, and moving or immigration are among its most significant forms. My work explores my personal experience of displacement through the memories of absent spaces and objects—those lost through growing up, moving, or death—and how their absence reflects change in our lives. Displacement and immigration are universal experiences, which I approach through my own observations, using a personal voice to connect with viewers who share similar experiences.

I use dissolvable fabric for its fragile qualities to speak to vulnerability and instability in life. The project focuses on the physical spaces of memory, represented through sculpture, photography, and video. Beginning with my experience as someone of Middle Eastern background living in Canada, the work reflects memories of a former safe place and the connections I am forming with a new one. Memories of past homes often make it difficult to fully settle elsewhere, and through my work I aim to express how displacement affects our sense of security and quality of life.

The Family Gathering project highlights what is missing as a result of displacement. As my new environment started to feel like a new safe place for me, I created replicas of the furniture around me using dissolvable fabric. These fragile objects reflect a vulnerable state of not yet being settled. Growing up in a close family where gatherings were frequently documented through photographs, I chose to restage these moments within the studio using its furniture, pointing to absence, fragility, and the experience of adapting to a new culture and language.