STREET POETRY
Street Poetry, 2020
single-channel video with sound
1:00
An attempt to illustrate the false dichotomy of beauty and animosity within the natural and the manufactured. The two are intertwined: flowers (life) are juxtaposed with death; a sports car (glamour) juxtaposed with the trash it will one day decay into. Here I pose the desirable and the unattractive together because it is all the same.
archival inkjet print
dimensions variable
Essentially a sociological portrait in contradiction to French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s sacred-profane dichotomy, an audiobook version of the Qur’an read by Saad al Ghamdi lies on the street. What is sacred in one part of the world is stepped on in another world to become as profane as litter.
archival inkjet print
dimensions variable
ليكسابرو seeks to highlight the consumerist culture that takes place in much of the Western world, where mental health becomes less of a condition and more of a product. Lexapro, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) mainly prescribed to treat depression and anxiety, can be viewed as an upgrade to the mental health product; the brain attains a faster processor, mood is revamped with a shiny new design, and body changes occur to become slimmer. In a healthcare system where medication is overprescribed and talk therapy is underprescribed, patients become customers and embrace the Lexapro brand. As part of the Street Poetry series, this work attempts to illustrate the difference in Eastern and Western medicine. In many Eastern countries, mental health is stigmatized resulting in a lack of this consumerist identity; patients carry out informal talk therapy with loved ones.
archival inkjet
dimensions variable
Glamorous images of actors lay upon a backdrop of a shattered car window glass, illustrating the polarization of socioeconomic statuses and a direct taking over of gentrification in Oakland.
