When I experienced Israel’s terrorist attack on Doha last week, I felt a new layer of the embodied compassion I had been seeking to connect people to with my 2024 site-specific installation, The Clinic. With Israel as a rogue genocidal state that is given exceptionalist permissive treatment – any one of us could be subject to an attack, displaced from our homes, and destroyed. When I first began sketching ideas for The Clinic, I did so out of urgency — urgency to express the conditions of my artmaking in 2023 and 2024; making art in the time of a genocide. These were the early months of Israel’s siege on Gaza and genocide of the Palestinian people. And the site for the work, the Queens Museum, carried its own history: it was the place where Palestine was partitioned into the Jewish ethno-state of Israel, while Palestine itself was diminished into an occupied Arab state.
As Black American Muslim woman who had just lived for six years in Cairo, the “outside” for me was the neighboring Gaza Strip. There was no real natural barrier, just a border marked by politics and violence. From Cairo, we watched in horror as our Palestinian brothers and sisters endured terror just across that invisible line.
What I was creating was both a visual meditation on that terror and a message of hope echoing across time and space — linking the struggle in Palestine with the Black Muslim community in Queens, New York. Less than 15 minutes away from the Queens Museum, at the SWAM dojo, I encountered words of strength and love that resonated deeply. These messages reminded me that Black communities too have endured tremendous state-led terror, rooted in racism, greed, and spiritual bankruptcy.
Like much of my practice, The Clinic grew out of research, lived experience, and a desire to create a space of embodied connection and creative transformation.
Seeing Palestine: Can we reimagine this trauma?
On October 7th, as news of the Hamas attacks reached me, I felt conflicted. My compassion extended to Israeli civilians even as I saw how Israel’s response quickly escalated into collective punishment of Palestinians. Each night became a vigil: watching, praying, and trying to understand.
One image stayed with me — the pamphlets Israel drops over Gaza: thin sheets of paper warning families to leave their homes before attacks. These fragile fragments, fluttering through the sky, hold the weight of violence. But, the faith and of Palestinian people amidst the attacks, the lost of homes, life and all forms of worldly security was inspiring. It indicated that there is something much more to be seen and witnessed. I wondered: what if their experience could be reimagined as something sacred, something that heals?
Studio Process and Experimentation
I grew up in a Black Muslim community where martial arts were central to survival and self-confidence. In Queens, during my In Situ Fellowship at the museum, I searched for that connection — and found it at the SWAM dojo.
In July 2023, I attended their “Clinic” — a gathering where martial arts masters shared not only fighting techniques but also jewels of wisdom, empowerment, and spiritual elevation. I knew immediately that these words belonged in my work.
In my studio, I hand-painted these mantras of discipline, sanctuary, and resilience onto transparent panels, layering gold pigment against glasslike surfaces. Suspended from the ceiling, the panels echoed the falling pamphlets — but instead of threats, they carried strength, protection, and care.
The process felt urgent, but creating the full installation of The Clinic was in every way intentional, meditative, and prayerful. Each mark became an act of transformation: turning symbols of destruction into vessels of refuge.
From Studio to Museum
At the Queens Museum — itself a former UN site marked by colonial history and displacement — The Clinic came alive. The panels caught the light, casting shifting shadows across the space. Visitors moved among them as if entering a sanctuary, their footsteps softened by the atmosphere of care.
The installation was no longer just an experiment. It became a living space of sacred resistance and communal healing. Though my entire Close to Home exhibition reads as something full of care, this installation was in fact the work that took the most time to install. It only comes alive in the exhibition space.
Living Amid Violence
Now, from my new home in Qatar, the urgency of this work has deepened. Last week, Israel struck Doha — unprovoked and without warning. To feel the vibrations of bombardment in my own body has drawn me closer to Palestinians, not just in thought but in lived experience.
Invitation
I invite you to witness The Clinic through this clip. Step virtually into its suspended fragments of gold, and let yourself reflect on the sanctuary it offers.
And to curators: I extend an invitation to imagine The Clinic within your institution, among your audiences. Bring them into this space of reflection, resistance, and healing.
Because in times like these, we don’t need more threats or warnings. We need art that protects, restores, and insists on our shared humanity.