Hope, Not Just Aid: Art, Palestine, and the Tradition We Carry

This July, labor organizer Chris Smalls boarded the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to deliver aid to Palestinians under siege. He was the only Black person aboard—and, unsurprisingly, the only one met with brutal violence. He was choked, beaten, and detained while trying to bring medicine, diapers, baby formula, prosthetic parts, and something even more powerful: hope, love, and solidarity.

We didn’t just bring aid. We brought hope, love, and solidarity… The goal is to deliver hope to the people of Gaza — and to hold Israel accountable. — Chris Smalls

His courage reminded me why I make the work I do. When people engage with my artwork, I want them to feel more deeply—in their bodies, in their spirits, and for one another. I want to make space for grief, for clarity, for connection. That’s what my installation The Clinic was about. That’s what Malcolm X in Turban is about. That’s what I inherited. Black people have long carried the weight and the will to fight. Across borders. Across generations.  

The Clinic: A Meditation on Protection, Breath, and Resistance

The Clinic is a 2024 installation I created at the Queens Museum, a site that housed the United Nations from 1945 to 1950—the same UN that, in 1947, formalized the partition of Palestine. The work features suspended transparent panels with gold-hued text spoken at the SWAM Academy’s martial arts clinic in 2023. an event in which martial arts masters gather at this Black Muslim-owned dojo in Queens to share their specialized fighting skills. Led by Sijo Abdul Mutakkabir, their words were sacred words — poetic, protective, and disciplined — offered to a community that it helped transform when it was under siege during the crack epidemic.

The installation’s form echoes another reality: the cruel paper pamphlets dropped from Israeli aircraft over Gaza, warning Palestinians of imminent bombings. In The Clinic, I invert that gesture. The panels become fragments of ancestral wisdom — not instruments of terror, but messages of survival.

Hope, Love, and Solidarity — A Family Practice

My daughter recently asked for my brush while I was working. In one of the recent posts I shared, I invited my followers to guess which strokes in the image were hers. This isn’t just a moment of motherhood—it’s part of how I see legacy and lineage in the work. I’ve been in my studio this summer, not burrowing down into a single project, but opening up: listening to books, reflecting on postwar abstraction, Palestine, and even exploring new ways to organize my life and work in Notion.

At the same time, I’m reflecting on geography—how it shapes our sense of belonging, how it affects who we feel responsible for, and how art can re-map those feelings. I believe deeply that we are all connected. As a Muslim, I know we come from one Creator, one ancestor. Yet I also understand that place can create distance. Or bridges. My six years in Cairo taught me that. Cairo is Africa, yes—and also part of the so-called Middle East, what we now call SWANA. It’s a bridge, not a border.

I created a performance and social practice project in 2022 called X Speaks, rooted in African decolonization movements and the diasporic call for liberation. Today, that energy resonates with the movement for Palestinian liberation. Palestine isn’t just a place. It’s a moral compass. A reflection of whether we truly stand for humanity.

Malcolm X in Turban: Seeking Truth Across Borders

Malcolm X in Turban began with a quiet moment I found during research — Malcolm outdoors in Ghana, after completing his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Qur’an in hand, gifted by a Ghanaian imam. That image held weight. I began layering it. First sepia. Then I cut an oval around his bust, revealing the original colors inside — green, garden-like, alive. Around that, I built a patterned lotus backdrop in topaz, blue, and pink. Each detail is intentional: the turban, the gaze, the petals. This work is about what we see—but more importantly, how we see. Malcolm was a seeker. He sought truth, clarity, and global transformation through Islam. His Hajj expanded him. He returned a broader vessel. Then, he left us. May Allah be pleased with him.

Collect Malcolm X in Turban Signed Limited Edition Print

Let There Still Be No Separation

Until the late 1940s, before the state of Israel was created, you could take a single train from Egypt into Palestine in less than a day. Africa to the Holy Land—unbroken. Let there still be no separation between us and Palestine—not in spirit, not in geography. Our problems are shared. Our solutions lie in our solidarity, inshaAllah. This is why I make the work I do. This is the tradition we inherit. And this is the one we must carry forward. Free Palestine.   Collect a signed print of Malcolm X in Turban

Follow along on Instagram @nsengaknight for more reflections and work-in-process. Learn more about Chris Smalls