If you are fasting this Ramadan, or know someone who is, you know that in Ramadan, Muslims who are fasting become hyper aware of time. When do we stop eating? When can we start eating? How much time do we have left? Growing up in New York, and having lived in many other parts of the US as a religious minority, the hyper-awareness I had during Ramadan was personal. In Egypt it is magnified beyond myself and expressed in the entire nation. In Cairo, traffic is jammed up from early afternoon until early evening with people rushing home to cook and to stop fasting and start a meal with their families as soon as the sun starts going down.
Knowing when to stop is important.
In Ramadan, time is a clear boundary. It separates people from their food so people who observe fasting this month have an increased respect for it. In reality, there are boundaries around everything. To make art, artists have to create boundaries around our energy and time to focus it on creativity. For me, alhumdulilah, both fasting and making art helps me focus and are energizing – this is one of the reasons why I never leave it.
Engaging with art helps us to recognize ourselves and see the value in others. The boundaries exist, but there is also a connection.
When I was working on my Periodic Table/ Drowning photo series I had trouble recognizing it’s ending. However, once I did, ending Periodic Table/ Drowning allowed me to see it in it’s totality; to realize it was complete and to allow what I had learned from making that work to inform my Plateaus photo series which came after it. I work in series, so an ending for me is usually a seed that begins another work.
Ramadan Kareem wa Mubarak!
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