Throughout my life, my experiences were always denied, distorted, and repressed not just due to being Palestinian, but also due to being a woman, a half Catholic half Eastern Orthodox Arab, and when I came to the U.S, I became a racialized other.
As a child, silencing was imposed upon me, and therefore as an adult, I internalized it and silencing became a self-imposed practice; I am a product of cultural and religious institutions that actively dismiss and silence women’s voices and force them to conform.
Remaining in denial was the only self-care tactic I knew since I lacked the resources and the language necessary to find home within my body. In my practice of drawing, I create a space for me to undo the silence, sit with all the shame and guilt, redefine my reality and name my oppressions in the hope of healing.
Through my art, I convey what it means to live with complex PTSD. Drawing has been the only way for me to make sense of what my body goes through on a daily basis. Many stigmas exist in regards to mental illness, and my goal has been to challenge that and connect with people who share similar struggles.
In my practice of drawing, I am learning that home starts here in my body, in all that lies embedded beneath my skin. Claiming my body as the center, I map the nature of my conflicts, and I bear witness to what my body remembers through images. The journey inward to find home is what this project has been about. It is important to note that my body does not exist in a vacuum, rather it exists in relation to other bodies; my ancestor’s bodies, in the diasporic bodies, and in the bodies of Palestinians who continue to live under military occupation. So my definition of home lies in the interconnectivity and intersection of these bodies in resistance, a collective resistance that links here and there in a continuum.