I see you. You’re wondering, where are my friends again? You want to express yourself more openly, to have people in your life you can connect with and trust on a deep level. I know that feeling. I just moved to Qatar a few months ago, and while few people have asked me how I’m settling in, I admit—I don’t feel settled yet. My villa has no art on the walls, my kids aren’t in school, and I haven’t yet built the kind of community I deeply connect with. But I am grateful. I have family here. I feel safe. And I’m excited about the opportunity to be in a new place—especially a majority-Muslim country where the people reflect so many of my values.
As women—Black and Muslim women especially—we are expected to sacrifice as parents, spouses, and caregivers while also being self-sufficient, never asking for help, and setting aside our own ambitions for the sake of others. I struggle with these lingering thoughts of what I “should” be doing. I’ve seen so many women suffer, trying to live out someone else’s vision of their lives. As an artist, I believe deeply in the importance of self-expression—not just in what we create on a canvas, paper, or project, but in what we say in our most intimate circles, in how we stand up for our beliefs when they are violated.
So, let’s talk about Palestine.
We just witnessed a highly public, highly visible genocide. The democratic government so many of us voted into office refused to stand on the principle of “never again.” Instead, we watched in horror as the Palestinian people were massacred—because no matter how many bombs were dropped, how many babies were killed, how many homes, hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, and refugee camps were destroyed, Biden continued to send billions of our hard-earned dollars to Israel. This betrayal, this complicity in one of the worst atrocities of our time, played no small role in the return of Trump—a man we never believed would win back in 2016—right back into office. A self-interested corporate capitalist is once again in charge, because when presented with two choices, we could not bring ourselves to support the genocide supporters. No matter how Caribbean, Black, daughter-of-immigrants, or HBCU sorority girl, sometimes the answer is just NO.
Not voting for genocide, however, doesn’t absolve us of the guilt that looms over us as people now governed by corporate egomaniacs. We couldn’t save humanity. We did what we could, but we were at a breaking point. Repeating the administrators of the worst thing we’ve ever witnessed was not an option.
As an artist, my work comes from my truest self. Some pieces have come to me in a dream, in a vision after dhikr or meditation. My job is to be honest. I don’t always know how my work will be received, and sometimes it feels like I’m speaking into a void—but I still have to speak. What I’m saying is that you have to say what you need to say and let the world marinate on it. Let them deal with the truth. Right now, we need courageous people willing to stand in that truth.
This need for truth is at the heart of my art. In my recent pieces, The Clinic and The Conveyor, I explore the tension between erasure and resistance. The Clinic consists of hand-painted poems on transparent material, suspended in the air like echoes of wisdom. These phrases, spoken by martial arts instructors at the SWAM Academy of Modern Martial Arts in South Jamaica, Queens, were carefully transcribed word-for-word, preserving the philosophy and guidance of the Black Muslim-owned dojo’s founder, Sijo Abdul Mutakabbir. For decades, this academy has served as a stronghold against oppression, a sanctuary for discipline and self-defense. The golden hue of the work recalls the academy’s act of painting its pavement gold in the 1990s—a statement of defiance and protection amid the crack epidemic and gang violence that threatened its community. The delicate, free-falling arrangement of the text mimics the Israeli leaflets dropped over Gaza City, warning residents to flee before an oncoming bombardment—turning the air itself into a weaponized space. Yet, in The Clinic, the suspended words offer something different: knowledge, empowerment, a means of survival. In this way, The Clinic speaks to the resilience of those who carve out spaces of safety and strength against forces seeking to dismantle them.
In The Conveyor, small toy paragliders inhabit the gallery space of the Queens Museum, a building that once housed the United Nations General Assembly during the years leading up to the Nakba. Resolution 181, the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, was passed within these very walls—setting into motion decades of displacement, resistance, and struggle. The paragliders—devices used in both warfare and humanitarian aid—become carriers of meaning, their presence loaded with history, ambiguity, and contradiction. They hover between destruction and salvation, between terror and hope.
When I create, I bear witness. I hold space for what must be remembered. My work is a refusal to let history be rewritten by the powerful. It is an act of truth-telling. In a time when so many voices are being silenced, we must carve out space for our own stories—whether through our art, our words, or our very presence in the world.
The truth needs to be expressed and fought for, no matter the cost—because it is worth every sacrifice. That’s what my art does. It stands in the space with you, saying what needs to be said. What wants to be said. People will take from it what they will, but somehow, it will help you be seen.
And I appreciate you seeing me. I want to be seen too.
Now, as we see the people of Palestine returning to the remains of their homes—the rubble, the Made in the USA missiles, the apocalyptic destruction—we find a moment of joy for them. Just to return. They are in shock, they are joyful, they are faithful. They are home.
Israel, with all its biggest, baddest weapons, caused unimaginable destruction, but they did not win—they just had to stop.
And the story isn’t over. There is so much repair that needs to be done. Just this week, Trump announced some half-baked plan to “own” Gaza. After witnessing the unwavering resistance of the Palestinian people, why does this man think he has any claim to them? Why does he want to fight again? The resistance must resist.
We’ve seen how this plays out.
The West has a long-standing obsession with the East and the Muslim world, but the interest is not mutual. Europe and America are always scheming for a piece of Africa and the Middle East. For centuries, they have distorted, pillaged, and repackaged our world. I was reminded of this when I recently saw Seeing Is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (InshaAllah, I’ll do a full review of this exhibition in an upcoming blogpost). One of the most commercially successful European artists of the 19th century, Jean-Léon Gérôme was praised as a history painter and visual storyteller. But his greatest impact came from his Orientalist depictions of North Africa and the Middle East—images that defined how Europe, America, and Britain viewed our world. His work, both fantastical and naturalistic, shaped the colonial gaze that still haunts us today. Since 1978, scholars like Linda Nochlin have scrutinized his paintings, revealing them as part of a larger, more insidious colonial project. So here we are, still undoing the narratives forced upon us, still fighting to tell our own stories.
I don’t have a call to action for you today—just an invitation. If you feel something after reading this, sit with it. If you have thoughts, share them with me. I want to hold space for where you are, without expectation. Just honesty, just truth.
I see you. I appreciate you seeing me.
