صدى خرائط غربتي

Topographical Desires

Ghorba; a word in Arabic that describes the alienation I have been longing to define. That feeling of culture shock, loneliness, and homesickness swarming everywhere and anywhere. Being a citizen of nowhere I have been constantly defined by topography and its alienness. Every piece of me has felt that I needed to belong somewhere but have been longing for somewhere else, a home for my soul. In these past few years, I have found that textiles have been the place where I belong, where that feeling of estrangement disappears. The act of embroidering, dyeing, and shaping my textiles as if they were self portraits was almost an act of shaping a home and my own geography. Within these pieces I lay the map of belonging, the map of being found. Within these pieces I map my true self.