And I woke up one morning screaming in the face of the dragon at Jan van Eyck Academy, June 2024
List of works:
Wall sculptures
Skinned Chair of the UN Security Council Chamber, 2024
Skinned Chair of the UN Trusteeship Council Chamber, 2024
Skinned Chair of the UNESCO Conference Hall, 2024
Ground sculptures
Tail Bite (Sand Curtain Series), 2024
Emerging from the Sky (Sand Curtain Series), 2024
Dance (Sand Curtain Series), 2024
I woke is up is an installation that examines diplomacy as a mechanism designed to cushion oppressive power structures and focuses on a group of Arab poets that refused its language.
I woke up… consists of wall hangings, sculptures, and a cento poem composed entirely from lines by Arab poets who transform themselves, their lovers, or their people into animals or natural elements to express love and resistance. The ground sculptures lean on the poets, materializing the transformations and figures they conjure as forms of self-preservation and defiance.
On the wall hang “skinned” models of chairs from the UN and UNESCO, stripped of their function as symbols of power in global statecraft. These chairs, traditionally linked to diplomacy, are reimagined as talismans of warning and protection. I woke up… seeks agency in a world where the language of diplomacy and civility serve as a facade for domination.
