Echoes of Other
Graduate Show, 2024
Echoes of Other brings together the theories and practices I have been exploring over this year using the agency of the voice to play with the imagination and heritage. I wanted to create a space that resembles a publishing house and a domestic home setting to showcase this concept of archives, the imagination, and grief are integral for transformation and the movement of cultural identity.
It holds two portals that reflect the sections of my dissertation: they behave in the same way doorways are used in Egyptian tombs and speak to a metaphysical transformation of liminal spaces and bodies. Alongside this, the portals themselves fluctuate as the base of the cabinet can have objects constantly changing and forming a new visual pattern for a different story.
The Al- Nahdtha Cabinet: Al Nahdtha (Renaissance) named after a newspaper my grandfather joined, is a cabinet that illustrates the makeup of heritage in the eyes of imagination grief and childhood. It revives the loss of memory and the importance of keeping childhood alive through displaying objects deeply ingrained in my relationship with my grandparents and the lifestyle of Aden, Yemen. It brings to life inanimate objects to shape the concepts of heritage and rituals into a visually rich statement of time passing, and the lives these objects revive to show the presence of the absent.
The Al- Tariq Cabinet: Al-Tariq (meaning ‘The Way’/ ‘The Path’ in Arabic) is a cabinet that establishes a language between childhood memories and the absence within archives by merging fictional and historical narratives to reflect how culture is constantly changing. It is named after a newspaper agency founded by my grandfather as a journalist. Reflecting the multi-faceted pathways from which cultures emerge and playful forms, it juxtaposes scenes of traditional garments, jewellery, and archives with archival map drawings of imports in Aden, Yemen, alongside fabricated fictional headpieces and pop-culture references, including The Beatles’ album and altered Sgt Pepper’s suits on display. It revives a playfulness in how heritage is encountered in the echoes of history and the obsessions of the personal.
