One Day These Names Will Be Ours (2017-2020)
Exploring Spectrums (2018) Metamorphosis (2018)
Addis Foam (2018)
Steeped in the rich myths, and lore of Somali culture One Day These Names Will Be Ours (2017-2020) is a manifesto of resistance. Combining elements of visionary fiction with traditional East African sartorial practices, the series aims to both re-contextualize, and re-imagine equitable futurities in the Horn of Africa, In it, I mix vibrant and intricately textured garments fwith contemporary, everyday materials. Playing with the notions of the veil, of being masked and unmasked as well as with shape and form.
Through the series I grapple with understanding the themes of memorialisation and monumentalisation through their interplay with power, especially in how they relate to state formation, and identity formation. How they dictate who is remembered and why, who is made invisible, peripheral, ghostly and why. How archives are imbued with their own characteristics of livingness. How memories, both ancestral, collective, and personal are imbued with a sort of nonlinearity, and how we are able to archive memory and materialize it simultaneously.
Exhibition views One Day These Names Will Be Ours (2017-2020)
Medium: Self-portrait photography
Size: 58cm x 47cm, 41cm x 46.5cm, 58cm x 42cm C-Prints
Additional information: Exhibition views at the V&A Museum London (2022)
Reclaiming Nostalgia (bottom right) 58cm x 47cm
Golden Illusions(top right) 41cm x 46.5cm
Addis Foam (left) 58cm x 42cm
These images are currently included in a 6 year touring exhibition entitled 'Africa Fashion' originally commissioned by the V&A Museum, London (2022) curated by Dr Christine Checinska, Sunny Dolat & Elisabeth Murray. The work has since been shown at the Brooklyn Museum (June 23- September 10 2023), the Portland Museum of Art (November 18 2023-February 18 2024) and most recently at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (May 31-October 6 2024)