DISORIENTATIONS, HEALING, AND HOPE:
A conversation with Gazelle Samizay and Labkhand Olfatmanesh on Language, Intergenerational Trauma, Dysphoric Experiences, Intersectionality, and Hope
By Misbah Mamoon
Image: Bepar, Gazelle Samisay and Labkhand Olfatmanesh
Disorientations. Confusion. Confrontation. All these are prevalent as people come to terms with past and current traumas, to begin healing. Often, one is not granted the opportunity to process what they’ve gone through - let alone figure out who they are, understand what the world has made them to be, or discern how they will continue on hoping for brighter futures. Having immigrated to the United States from Iran in her adulthood, Labkhand Olfatmanesh navigated the hardships that came with abruptly leaving behind her home, moving to a new country, and finding a place for herself while facing discrimination, a lack of relation and community, and finding herself and her authenticity. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan and raised in rural Washington state, Gazelle Samizay faced coping with the complexities and contradictions of culture, nationality and gender through the lens of her bicultural identity. Their collaboration was bred through their specified experiences as women and their Afghan and Iranian heritage, respectively. While Samizay grew up in the US and Olfatmanesh in Iran, their collaboration and varied background allowed them to create a universal story rooted in specific cultural intersections.
Through their collaborations, incredible multimedia artists and activists, Gazelle Samizay and Labbie Manesh (short for Labkhand Olfatmanesh), portray the conflicts and obstacles that many girls face, growing into adulthood. Considering both personal and political struggles such as war, marriage, generational trauma, and gendered social expectations, their works face potential past traumas as well as processes of healing through stunning, provocative, (and at times uncomfortable) audiovisual narratives.
Samizay and Olfatmanesh share with us their insights and reflections into past experiences, intersectionality and navigating the immigrant, dysphoric experience, gender expectations and motherhood, and intergenerational traumas. Discussing their processes of healing and collaboration, facing past traumas and translating them in their work - they explore their ever evolving relationships with hope and notions of After Hope.
[Misbah Mamoon] Why don’t we start with a little introduction from each of you and how your backgrounds have affected your work?
[Labbie Manesh] I was born in Tehran, Iran, and I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist. The areas I like explore have to do with feminism, race, isolation, borders, immigration, and storytelling. My work explores how these forces take a dual shape as an immigrant to the states, and with my home country. So, as an artist living in the diaspora, the understanding of diversity and intersectionality is always very close to my heart and very important to me. In my work I kind of intensely focus on personal stories about myself. With my subjects, my approach is more of a healing methodology. Some of the things in my work are very bold and I’m drawn to the confrontational; vulnerability is definitely kind of a signature of my work. Another thing I have to say is I really believe that my role one not just of an artist - I’m a storyteller and community organizer so I like to develop and create these dialogues at a community level; producing a kind of creative space. This is due to my personal experience as an immigrant, because it's hard to fit into a different community and shift and adapt to a new environment. So, I really believe in the collaboration model and connecting to especially underrepresented communities and sharing your stories together. So yeah, that's me. In terms of background, I’ve had many exhibition shows. I'm pretty active in charity work internationally, nationally, and locally. I also try to work with different institutes and organizations; nonprofit organizations as a board member or as a facilitator or just participate in as many as I can. I can be effective and kind of get to be the voice of underrepresented groups; more bold and more vibrant, and be a part of these communities.
[Gazelle Samizay] I was born in Afghanistan, but we left when I was a baby and eventually we landed in rural Washington State. And so growing up, I think that there was this missing piece; I definitely had exposure to Afghan culture through my parents but there wasn't a strong, or large Afghan community in Pullman, Washington, which is where I grew up. I think that, as I got older, I was trying to put together the missing pieces of my family's history and where I came from, because my parents also didn't talk that much about it. And another piece of that is that they spoke Farsi with each other but then they spoke English with my sister and I, and so my language ability created a barrier to accessing the culture more fully. So a lot of my work is inspired by that bicultural identity and existing in those two worlds. And I think a lot of my beginning work really was dealing with my identity as a woman in those two spaces and what kind of overlaps there may have been, or are. But I would say a thread through all my work is this intimate storytelling. I use my personal experiences as a jumping off point to talk about larger issues of gender, or injustices in general. And I am a multimedia artist but I do a lot of work in video.
LANGUAGE
[MM] That's amazing, thank you. I actually wanted to ask you about language and how that impacted your work. You mentioned that language can create barriers or ties to a culture, and has heavily affected your experience growing up. I find that often how we contextualize and frame emotions or concepts such as hope can also shift based on our cultures and language. So do you think these notions of hope have shifted for you based on your experiences with language? What role does language play in your work? I also thought I’d ask if you’ve thought about developing your own language of hope or after hope? Much of both your works is often translating really deeply nuanced traumas and experiences in your mediums, and it almost seems like you develop your own language of, ‘after hope,’ or disorientation.
Like you were saying, it feels like a lot of immigrants with families have a story of a home or future that was lost or abandoned or even fled from. And growing up in a cultural diaspora, as a young child has this skewed nostalgia of a projected future that was never realized, which is something I also have experienced with my older family members. Your piece, ‘Hands for Walls Letter,’ Gazelle, deals with your father, having built a home that you barely got to live in. It touches on a final confrontation with a discovering of your land, one you fantasized about growing up, but never knew. And for someone who they themselves, Labbie, fled from a home and country to another one - you contend with this drastically different environment that doesn't align with your memories until that point. How do you begin translating like this kind of disorientation that you both seem to be experiencing? And how does that affect your relationship to space, nationality, your international ethnic community, and being in a diaspora? Is that disorientation something you hope to convey in your work, or is that confusion something you know to be so prevalent that it ends up translating naturally?
[GS] To address the last questions about confusion and disorientation– Labbie and I have a series called, ‘Woven,’ which is a photo collage series, and it uses images from our video “Bepar.” But we've reconfigured the images, through cutting them and collaging them and reorienting them and then photographing them again. Some of them look kind of messy, and there's lots of chopped up images with other elements like seeds or salt. And so one of the things we were trying to communicate is that confusion and disorientation, and that confusion of having roots in Iran and Afghanistan, but then living in the US - who is very much responsible for many of the destabilization issues in both those countries, and what it's like to have a foot in each of those lands.
[MM] Your project, ‘Bepar,’ touches on a lot of common experiences that many women struggle with growing into adulthood. You explored this in a very specific context of this cultural reference of hopscotch, but you somehow maintain this language - a lack of language - where you're not speaking and writing. It almost felt like - to me - you were cultivating a balance between language and sounds of war, crisis and silence, and also imagery; you almost formed its own sort of medium through that. Do you think that kind of complexity and multimedia you were talking about creates a language of hope, or potentially after hope in your work?
[GS] I think it was really interesting that you were saying we created our own language. I think that is true in a way and I think art is a way of communicating. With, ‘Bepar,’ and even the collages, where there's a lot going on simultaneously, I think that disjointedness, and the absence of things or the absence of continuity, communicates the disjointedness of our experiences or the way that your memories come in and out.
[LO] That was a really interesting point. I have to say, one of the things that is very strong in our work and in us personally is that we’re really inspired by our culture and our upbringing. It’s the poetic language that is a really big connection between me and Gazelle when we were in the process of coming up with a visual or coming up with the idea of what something means. For some of them we like to reverse the actual meaning, or there is a fluidity in interpreting it. In some cases, when initially one might not see it as such, the experience was actually bitter. For example there is a part in, ‘Bepar,’ where there is some kind of action, when somebody wants to go on a road or travel, so they want to have a safe coming back kind of thing. So the gesture is like they have a bowl of water, relaying a message to come back safe. However, there is a kind of a troll-like being behind the person too. In our case, leaving our country, it wasn't sweet. In so many ways it was not by choice. There is some certain force and necessity where we need to move because of certain issues, and for some cases even worse. So that brings that trauma and the way we picture it - we show it in that video. It shows a troll behind the person instead of something behind where it would be very gentle and very soft. It shows there's no softness there - it’s like there is that action of violence or there's that action of shock. And maybe that translates to a cultural shock that is still with us. It is an experience that just never goes away but might transform in some ways.
And that transformation - as you said - in that video, we have those moments of pause, a lot of meditating on a certain feeling or movement and I think it is those that create that idea of hope, or after hope, maybe towards the end. That was a really good point you brought up, because it also brought me back to the work, to kind of review some of the things and share here. And also earlier you talked about the relationship with language. I think every immigrant experience is also affected by generational differences. When and at what age they came to the US makes it so they have a variety of experiences - there is a gap there and I experienced it. There's a lot of immigrants to whom I connect but also I can't connect because we have a different gap, based on the situation or age we came here, so it is hard to fill that gap and get related. So that's another challenge for a lot of immigrants as well because you could be alone in it; it's still in your own community but because we don't connect either culturally or through language, there is a gap between different generations.
[MM] That's so fascinating, your thoughts on confrontation and disorientation. These experiences that some people - and what you two especially - have experienced are very jarring. A lot of the time, expressing these kinds of experiences has to be softened in a way, and made digestible so people who don’t relate can somehow begin to understand it. I appreciate that you're staying true to these realities and trying to convey those feelings. Even for someone that goes through these traumas, they can go through their whole life, regardless of how long it's been, and still feel that jarring shock. It doesn't always soften over time. It produces a lot of disjointed memories, and coping with trying to understand these things follows you everywhere you go.
VULNERABILITY, THE IMMIGRANT AND DYSPHORIC EXPERIENCE
[MM] Related to that, I wanted to ask you about how you begin approaching vulnerability. You've talked about observing the fears that many immigrants have around sharing their experiences. And I wanted to ask you, have you ever felt these fears yourself? You said that confrontation is really a big part of your project, but have you had to contend with that and how do you begin tackling these issues of gender and culture to the complexities and nuances that you do in a way that's meaningful and effective - but isn't misconstrued by, or misunderstood by an audience that doesn't understand the intricacies of your socio-cultural community. At least I - and a lot of women of color, I think - often feel like we’re battling two fronts. One where you’re defending your community and proving to a dominant Western society or the society that you're living in that you're empowered and have autonomy; that you don't need white saviors. Yet at the same time, you still have to contend with cultural and patriarchal issues within your local community, your ethnic community, or your family. And so, the rough position of defending your community while not receiving the same support back - do you have to consider this when you're doing your work, or is it a risk of being vulnerable that you accept? How do you navigate that?
[LO] Well, I’ll address that last sentence about the risk of being vulnerable. I think at some point in my work, I truly decided to take this vulnerability as an advantage to be able to empower people who experienced the same fear. Especially coming from my background I see that the idea of shaming or imposing all these stereotypes is not something that will go away. So I find a way to set myself as the example of someone going through this process. Of someone putting my fear away and just showing my vulnerability. And I feel this is really what my work has become, not only in terms of that healing methodology which I told you about in the beginning, but on a personal level. It just healed me, it helped me to compress and process. But also I feel that although it may empower me, it would help someone who has a similar experience be empowered, and make them feel like saying, ‘Hey, I could say that too,’ it's gonna be okay, you know?
Again, as I said, obviously I start from myself, and then I'm hoping that could have a ripple effect, or just affect the rest of people who feel the same. And, definitely, it's been very tough, especially moving here. I came here after my college, so I didn't go to college here. So there are a lot of lacking areas for me besides the language; just understanding and fitting in a culture and different communities - and even relating to other immigrants who went to the college here. Definitely, I couldn't easily integrate myself to be part of those groups. So, when I came here, I mostly focused on work, and I have to survive and work. That also put a different type of pressure on me directly - very raw and the way I was kind of expecting. Seeing things happen around me, nothing was gentle or was very straightforward, and there was a lot of discrimination I was experiencing. I think in some way I was naive because when you are in Iran all you know is that this country creates all this chaos and this disorientation, as Gazelle was saying. But at the same time you just have that sense of hope, of more opportunity for me. There’s thoughts like, “Oh, I’m stuck here,” There’s so many things that you build up in your head as positive things. But when you come here, the reality is a different thing. You’re still alien or the fact that your existence is dehumanized in so many ways. You have to constantly prove yourself. All of that puts a lot of pressure. You already have traumas - as anybody else who has certain traumas. But coming here, instead of being able to process those traumas, you are dealing with totally new things adding different layers of trauma on existing traumas.
When it comes to the language as well. Especially in a project about language, it became - in the last few years - very important for me, especially during COVID. I had more stillness and time to just process certain traumas and work because all the movement started to slow down a little bit. And when I was kind of going back to some of my trauma, I noticed how now I am adapting myself - I forced myself to speak English, and be a good citizen, or being this being that; fitting myself to this and that. And when it comes to really processing my trauma, it just doesn't come easily, to be honest; the real essence of that trauma doesn't come across. I don't connect to it, there is a distance between that person back in college or back in my childhood’s personality or that person who experienced that issue. Now it's just foreign to me when I try to speak, try to talk with my therapist, try to talk with my friends, or anybody. It just doesn't come. It's not real, a word that doesn't have that same weight and meaning anymore. I just see how these terms like the thing they called code switching, it kind of really disorients. The whole idea of who I am - I keep shifting from one person to another.
[MM] That's a great point regarding having multiple identities. Being in this kind of space we're all in, it's hard to find any time to understand yourself fully and I think the pandemic forced a lot of us to face these things. That's fascinating. And I feel as though that condition has many similarities to the dynamics of intergenerational traumas as well. Dealing with multicultural identities can not only have to do with personal, individual traumas that we experience, but it can also be a family and generational issue. I don't know if you also relate - if your family systems and community are like this as well - but talking about your issues is not something my family really does; talking about generational issues is not something we do. So that stifling I think perpetuates and increases a lot of intergenerational trauma.
“4 HANDS 4 WALLS: AN ARCHITECTURE OF REMEMBRANCE (2017)” is a model of the familial home built by Samizay’s father, that had to be abandoned by her family in order to flee Soviet occupation.
INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMAS and GENDERED EXPECTATIONS
[MM] We're living in a time when talking about these issues of cultural limitations and restricting gender norms and multi-cultural identities are becoming more acceptable. Do you feel hopeful that these dialogues will create futures and relationships that are more understanding - and will potentially help with intergenerational trauma too? Your work is taking a great step in being open about these issues.
[GS] I'm happy to see that those conversations are happening, but as you asked the question, I realized my own cynicism. I'm wondering if this is a phase. Like, if we're in a certain period of time where it's okay to talk about these things and then when it's not “in fashion,” anymore or there's something else - if that'll just get pushed aside. Yeah, so, not a very good outlook unfortunately. *chuckles* I think that what is hopeful is that I know at least from my own personal experience I've been learning a lot from those conversations and from being challenged in my own perceptions and learning more about people and their experiences. For example, not conforming to a certain binary gender identity. So I think on an individual level that is a really positive impact.
[LO] Yeah, definitely. I agree with Gazelle because sometimes things get out of fashion or people start to be really strongly divided about things; things shift. It's one of the areas that also helped me. Especially in one of my ongoing projects. It has to do with the expectation of women, which is regarding motherhood, and how it is an expectation and pressure put on women of the childbearing age. That basically came from my own decisions and how I felt conflicted, questioning, ‘Am I making this decision on my own or am I making this decision based on what society or family expect from me?’ That was a big question for me. Because I don't even have much of that pressure from my family in a very direct way - which is still not great - but I could see how just society and the whole system creates this sort of mandate where it’s important, it’s part of your identity and your value. I felt like I wanted to challenge that because I think even in the modern world, women have this value chain associated with the decision of being a mother. I really respect it, and I think it is such a huge choice, and is very important, but at the same time I just don't feel like that decision is for everybody. That's my personal opinion, obviously.
So in this project I am definitely challenging this idea - even in a Western society, it’s not just in my own society. Also the other thing about childbearing and motherhood and parenting to me is how it works with the immigrant family. It has a lot to do with how hard it is for a lot of families to truly be able to have a child with the issue of money and so many things besides,’if I wanted to or not,’ so there is a lot of challenge that comes with because it's so taboo to talk about.
This is definitely a challenge for me, but I'm up for this task because I feel a lot of women are just not comfortable talking about it because they think they're going to get judged. Even people who are parents. Since starting this project I have had amazing dialogue with all different kinds of people - even people who think the opposite of me or those who completely agree, which was great. There was a lot of debate about this, but hearing all these a stories from different perspectives - even from a 60 years old who had a child, talking about how she felt very alien about the idea that she had a baby and how she felt weird, to someone who can't wait to have their fourth child, and someone facing difficulties being a mother where they don't really share and glamorize motherhood. So there's all different perspectives of it. But definitely for me, in the beginning, I had a lot of hesitation because I was careful with my audience. These people from the same background or people who I identify with - I wanted to make sure to connect with those people, so I didn't want to make them feel like I was simply following a non-intersectional white feminism or that sort of thing. I just really want to connect with my own community in that regard. For me, it was important to consider how I can approach them, how they can see that I'm not the enemy, that I just want to have these open conversations and that even I am challenged or struggling with this idea of, ‘should I be or should not, is it for me or not..?’ I'm still working on this project and taking a different kind of route. Trying to use different mediums to show and connect as much as possible with the different audiences and community. My ultimate goal is to definitely connect with the community who identify more with me.
[MM] That sounds like a fascinating project. It’s a really relevant topic to a lot of people. I think a lot of what happens - at least in my community - is things like not getting married or not having kids is regarded as something that, ‘Americans do,’ and when they say Americans, they mean white people. And it’s not even considered to be something up for debate. I also think that those kinds of narratives can perpetuate a lot of intergenerational trauma, at least in my opinion. I agree, I feel like people should think a lot more about having kids than they do as a default action. I sometimes think about all the reasons people say that they want to have kids. Sometimes they talk about them like pets; wanting to play dress up with them. Or they imagine a child as an extension of their person, to realize their dreams and live vicariously through them. This is something a lot of immigrant and first generation kids deal with - which can get very unhealthy, because humans are obviously autonomous beings. I often think about how these issues perpetuate.
Related to that I wanted to talk to you about your project Bepar. I'm curious about its commentaries on childhood intergenerational trauma, and the hope relayed to break some of these cyclical phenomena. I often think about how ironic it is that many older women in my life are some of the greatest advocates for maintaining a lot of gendered social norms - things like having kids etc. It’s easier to not really care about what men in my life say or do to advocate for such things, but it’s harder when women close to you are placing these expectations on you, having experienced the same pressures themselves. Sometimes I wonder if a lot of older women in our families feel like because they had to go through so much, in order to justify or validate the things that they dealt with, the next generation has to do those things too. I wanted to get your opinions on that and if you've experienced that as well? And if your project addresses this in any way. Have you experienced people who have dealt with certain traumas being the ones who perpetuate it upon others? And do you think that kind of phenomena has any role in your works such as Bepar, in terms of dissecting functions of intergenerational trauma?
[GS] Yeah, I think it's definitely factored into my work. My first video piece was “Nosh-e Jan” and it was about stories getting passed down through generations. Some of these stories were traumatic and women are writing secrets on paper, and then they end up stuffing them in these dumplings called mantu. Then the whole family ends up eating them, including the men. It is about how these secrets get passed down, even silently.I have another video called “Upon My Daughter” which is about the way that rituals and expectations of women in regards to marriage get passed down. There's all these women around the bride and they start stitching on her dress to beautify it, but then slowly the stitching gets really out of hand and she becomes cocooned in all the threads. It's about how the stitches are a representation of the advice that is being handed down to her and maybe some of that's kind of gentle or helpful in the beginning but then ultimately becomes very overbearing. That piece only includes women, so it is about women holding us back. *laughs* I think it is important to be self-reflective; what habits and things we have learned and what we might be automatically pushing forward - even though we might not be aware of it, we might just be doing what we've always been taught. And I have to say, I would consider all the women in my family to be feminists, but… you do see a difference in how the boys are treated versus the girls.
MM: Yeah, it's weird growing up seeing it. This is in part connected to discussions of how women of color talk about their experiences in public. I never really grew up thinking that I had many of the caricatured oppressions that American media says Muslim women have, or South Asian/Middle Eastern women have. The women in my family are very strong and very opinionated, most of whom work etc. But then as you grow up, you start to see the cracks in certain older people, and even younger people. I think it feels like this illusion is being shattered, which happens not just in communities of color - it happens all around you, seeing how the patriarchy manifests in general. Realizing these things, you have to spend time to understand how these ideas have perpetuated over time and passed on in your family.
[LO] I’d like to add something specifically about the Bepar video. We talked about how these women witness but they're kind of powerless to really take some action. Their presence is different - definitely they are missing some action or they are more like a silent patient - but there is a different kind of presence. They kind of pass that energy to the next generation. They push the idea that this is a quality you have to have.
Personally, I saw the operation of the patriarchy. I had a strong woman in my family, my mother has her own business; she was somebody that works and everything but at the same time, I feel like everything is still centered around men. Everything was centered around how to make sure they are nourished; to make sure we can make the men happy, make sure the men get what they want. So that kind of serving, leaning towards that, was very challenging for me because it is a woman's duty and that you have to present yourself in a way for that, be told what your role is. That gender role, as they say, definitely put a lot of challenges and pressure on me.
As you see in Bepar, this girl tries to navigate her path and all these obstacles and go through these different phases and emotions and there are other, older women who are witnessing all that. You can see in the film that she's just patiently waiting and hoping, or even praying - there's a lot of faith that these things are going to get better. That idea of fate and destiny, or just hoping for things to change or a better outcome, or that some other element could give you more opportunity. Even today, I just feel like sometimes I want to have a fresh talk with some of the women in my life, to give them a different perspective because there are some perspectives that they have seen but they never want to just talk about. They know it really well but I think it is really hard for them to talk or get close to it. They want to keep it as it is. I think to them, keeping a family together is more important on so many levels.
[MM] I really relate to that. And the thing is, we're talking about coming to terms with multiple identities and how to stay true to these identities and understand them more, while also recognizing their faults or the cultural implications of all of the different kinds of cultures or communities we were exposed to. You both experienced the intertwined nature of these cultural values, for example. There are good and bad things. You know, being caring, taking care of our larger communities, being hospitable, all these things are portrayed as very important parts of our communities and crucial to how we interact. And then not doing those things is deeply entrenched in us as women as forgoing our cultural beliefs; as foregoing things that we were raised to do that are seen as good. At least with me being the eldest daughter - and a lot of women of color experience this - women have to take a lot on in terms of making sure that everyone around you is happy and taken care of. There is a lot of guilt associated with not living up to those expectations or fulfilling those cultural norms. All these things can be hard to come to terms with.
A lot of issues with being an immigrant or the child of immigrants or part of a diaspora is constantly being told that you're more Western or more of your ethnicity/culture than another - or that you're foregoing one for another. There's a lot of shame and guilt associated with it; many times actions are deemed selfish simply because they’re not maintaining these cultural beliefs. I'm wondering if you have ever experienced that and how do you begin disentangling yourself from these heavily complex ways of community. Or do you decide to be selfish, for example, deciding that you're going to forgo parts of your cultural belief? Growing up, you have to disentangle yourself from learning those things and re-educate yourself, and really be able to know who you are and be okay with that.
[LO] I want to say that's also part of healing that trauma. I definitely connect with that because in the process of becoming the person who you are, you are learning. You're feeling like you don't necessarily have to be at the service of people. You can select, you don't have to just fully continue in the roles they gave you. You can pick and choose, right? But in that process of picking and choosing, you definitely lose some of the connection and relation with people from the past, right? And that's definitely a part of that journey, of processing those traumas and accepting that this is what I'm choosing, and this is what works for me. I think it is not easy, but I am definitely working on that, and I'm aware of it. But there are some areas I like to hold on to. Even though it sometimes comes across as painful, a little bit - for example when it comes to certain forms of hospitality or some sort. I have a sweet memory of how important, amazing that support and role is. It had a great effect and impact on me, so I feel like I would like to have it in the way I can carry it, you know. It is possible for me. Yeah, there's definitely a conflict there. But, at the same time there are some positive parts as well; finding some of the things you still want to continue and stay connected and related to and maintain it. But maintain it in a different environment. I’ll never forget some of the things that have to do with hospitality. I just felt cold feet like, ‘what am I doing, why am I putting myself in this position.’ And even without the expectation, you just want that feeling of having that person understand where you come from. But still you just feel a little empty, right? I guess that's the challenge.
[GS] When you were talking about how if you don't do certain things that you're expected to do because of your culture or gender, I was thinking about how if I don't do those things sometimes I'm accused of being Americanized and that that's a bad thing, or I’m a traitor somehow. I think that one of the benefits of being bicultural is that you can pick and choose different attributes of each culture that suit you. And I think that there are benefits and cons to both American and Afghan cultures. But it can be difficult navigating both of those. Like asking for, or saying what you want, or your needs, or something - or being very direct - might be categorized as more of an American attribute, or more acceptable in American culture.That could be seen as rude, perhaps, in Afghan culture. On the other hand, especially as an artist where you are essentially a business person - no one ever tells you this in art school - you're expected to promote yourself and everything. I have such a hard time with that because I was really raised to remember that you should be humble and deferential and this idea of constantly putting myself on social media or whatever - I can't. And I know that, that is part of just my wiring, of how I was raised, and that there's not anything necessarily wrong with it, but I just can't do that. Even when I write these grant applications where you essentially have to sell yourself, I feel like I'm bragging, and that, that's wrong. And then I ask my artist friends, “well, what do I do?” and they said “no, you're not bragging, you're just telling the truth.” I do feel like it’s a barrier that I have to deal with.
[MM] I completely relate to that. Just being a woman in general, that is relevant. I have to fight the urge to include a thousand exclamation marks in every one of my emails; I feel like I have to unlearn doing that.
[GS] Oh, that's a really interesting observation.
[MM] At least in the professional setting, I guess as a woman you’re socialized to say sorry a lot. Just having to show a lot more extra effort in all of your interactions. You have to soften or qualify everything - every question, every opinion, claim, or statement.
[GS] Or request.
[MM] Yes exactly - being direct is really hard for me in that sense.
HOPE and the DIASPORIC EXPERIENCE
[MM] I'm going to shift gears a little bit to ask you about your relationships with hope. I know Gazelle you mentioned a little bit earlier about how you’re skeptical about the future acceptance of talking about these issues and that sometimes they are trends. So, I wanted to ask you - what is your relationship with hope like and has that changed over time? Or what - if anything - has led you to have these opinions that maybe this is not something that's going to last for that long. Either of you. Or if this another question is more relevant - how is hope contextualized in your families or communities? Does it relate to your sense of self or family or culture?
GS] I think I really struggle with the idea of hope and after hope, and recently there's been more scholarship around futurism and there's been that trend also in art– imagining new futures. As we were talking, I realized that the exhibit title “After Hope” has taken a new meaning for me, in the context of recently helping Afghan artists get out of Afghanistan. Labbie also touched on these topics in discussing her own immigration experience. Some of the Afghans that I was working with have this idealized image of coming to the US. For example, there were actually several countries they might have ended up in, but this one artist - he just really wanted to come to the US. Even more than the UK or Spain. I kept trying to tell him, ‘there's not that much funding here for artists compared to the EU.’ But he has this idea. And you know, we were able to help some Afghans get out, which gave them hope of survival, right? But now there's this whole other level of what's next, because they're in this limbo now of not having citizenship in a country where they don’t feel safe or their visas are limited. So I think that the words “After Hope” have this new meaning for me because I feel like it very much applies to the recent immigration experience of many Afghans.
[MM] There are a lot of people that I know, family and friends, that view coming to America similarly. Even when I've gone back to India, my family talks about my life as living this magnificent, luxurious life in America - I do understand that it is heavily romanticized in other countries, but that isn’t always the reality. A lot of people that I know will spend decades waiting to get their opportunity to move here. But when they do, it's very, very difficult to do so. Things like not having a car and using public transportation (that isn’t the best here) to get around can be very difficult. Then getting a job without reliable transportation is hard… Living day to day without a support system or community that you had, communities you grew up in - I know can be really disorienting and overwhelming. And so that's really fascinating. I've never heard it in that context but you're right, I think it really does apply, because you spend so long anticipating this perfect future. But it's never going to be you know what you imagined it to be.
[LO] I have to say, I really experienced that hope, and after hope. Exactly that, you know, planning. When I left one of the things I did before I moved to the US is I went to Cyprus for three years. Basically, that was my transition to be able to come to the US - because it was a long shot at that time. I was kind of impatient to just wait. And then bang, things happened miraculously - so I knew I had to start from this smaller step, which I did. Luckily, all the planning I did worked out. I consider myself very lucky because the whole thing worked with me really well. Not only did I get a chance to experience living on that island of Cyprus for three years, being really active with my photography career over there, I connected with a lot of international communities and worked with a lot of very interesting projects related to the border. So still I was very active and I think I grew in a lot of ways, from the aspect of documentation journalism and different skills plus my journey. It was a strong point of my life actually. When I made it to the US, I came here on good terms because as an artist I came with some work and awards and stuff and ended up as an artist. Basically I was able to apply and get my resident green card and citizenship. But, it wasn't that easy when I had all this and it seemed like I had all the power in my hands yet the reality was different. Because reality was: ‘Where is the job? How am I going to survive? Where can I continue to really sustain my life and everything?’ It just hit me so hard, because when I go back to that time, probably, if I had had resources and a lot of support it would be different. As a single woman I didn't come with the family, obviously it was harder.
So I didn't have a lot of luxury and support, going to college at that time. All I was thinking was that I had to support myself and I had to prove myself an artist. If I show, this is what work I did, then I have to continue showing that, otherwise they're going to take it away from me. They're going to not allow me to stay or I'm not going to be able to get my green card or citizenship. So I was constantly in fear of proving myself, showing that it is worth it. That I'm worth it. Telling myself I can do this. That was really hard because I ended up working in a place (a quote unquote “job for photography”) that was such an abusive place. It discriminated against me, it was awful. And every time I was telling anybody the experience I had - for here, people easily say, ‘Oh you should sue, why you didn't sue them.’ and I'm just like, ‘I just don't know what sue is. What sue means.’ I didn't know my rights. It was sad. I was exposed to such toxic behavior and I will never even forget how I got attacked by another co-worker when I spoke my language to the client. As a bilingual person - which was an advantage actually - after that client left, she attacked me saying, ‘This is America, you should speak English.’ Luckily at that time, I was gaining a little power and learning a little bit more about how to stand up for myself and said, “Hey, I have an advantage. I'm talking in two languages.” But getting there took a while; such a long time - at least four or five years - to really learn and understand that I could stand for myself. Because I had that fear. Every time I wanted to stand for myself I felt like they'd kick me out, or that I didn't have the right.
When you go to another immigrant group, they also have that oppression, that fear, or they try to fit in and become white, because that's the more dominant one. But anyway, I got a little emotional, remembering those times. I don't think that challenge ever went away, I just did, I changed. My skin got thicker and I learned more. And found more people. I think I took that collaboration with Gazelle because it’s part of empowerment. Specifically, I'm going to address that because especially in Iran, they treat Afghan immigrants as second class citizens. They don't treat them right. So growing up, it was very sad to see that I didn't even have a classmate who was Afghan - we had so many Afghan immigrants or people even born there they were citizens - but it's still they didn't have a lot of rights. I think until the last few years, they wouldn't go to school. There were a lot of things missing over there.
This collaboration helped me to kind of bring that to attention - not only to the communities through that collaboration - but also for myself because I think that was the missing part. There was a question in me that I never got a proper answer to or that was left alone: How is it possible that we are neighboring countries? We share a lot of common interests from language to so many things from art or poetry and everything. But have so much of a distance, and all these stereotypes, and do not really treat them well or welcome them the way we should have. These are hopeful things for me - finding people or working and collaborating, or having these dialogues, and even this conversation we have with you - that is just important because that's what helped me to process and learn more. Realizing, ‘Okay, this is possible. I can also speak that way or I can show up and not have a fear of that judgment and all that.’
[GS] I think that’s very beautiful, but I also think that when Labbie was talking about having to prove herself as an immigrant, that made me think of when I was helping these Afghans get out of the country. I was very aware that there was this valuation system on what kind of immigrant was worthy. It just frustrates me so much because it's like, okay, if this person worked with the US government or if this person speaks English, then maybe they have access to someone who can help them. Or if they worked for an NGO, okay, then they're eligible for this special visa. But what about this woman here who has no education, no connections, no English? It's such a shitty system. It's so dehumanizing. It's disgusting. The immigration system…I don't even know why we have these borders and laws, you know?
[MM] I think often about how POC are only - and especially often black people in America - are only considered useful to the larger dominant structures, as long as they provide a service. You're very disposable the second you're not able to provide that service. That is consistent with people of color in America, especially immigrant communities. And you're right that is really painful and dehumanizing.And I’m still thinking about your experience, Labbie, when you were talking about immigrating here and the discrimination you face in your workplace. And I’m thinking about what Gazelle said. There is a lack of care, and protection of people that have immigrated here and are starting over into a new life. and then that's when we started off. Being in that diaspora, and not being able to find community and that support perpetuates that.
“Upon My Daughter” is about the way that rituals and expectations of women in regards to marriage get passed down. Women around the bride start stitching on her dress to beautify it, but then slowly the stitching gets really out of hand and she becomes cocooned in all the threads. The stitches are a representation of the advice that is being handed down to her and maybe some of that's kind of gentle or helpful in the beginning but then ultimately becomes very overbearing.