An Invitation Towards Tahreer // transiting between worlds is a piece that I began to envision during the early summer months of 2024, during a period of ongoing crisis in the Levant, specifically in Gaza and more generally in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq - which only became more pressing and deadly in the months following.
In continuing to endure against despair, I began thinking back to all the (critically) hopeful and revolutionary ideas I cherished through a lens of ‘cultivation’ and, specifically questioned what it would mean to maintain a repository or ‘garden’ of ideas, questions, practices, repertoires and ways of being with one another that are based on decolonial imaginations and liberated worlds for all.
In practice, that meant vigorously using my sketchbook to map out ideas and create these ‘collages’ that I could draw inspiration from. This painting is one such imperfect and incomplete form of that inspiration.
*it should be noted that the gorgeous reference for this photo came about when I accidentally stumbled upon an Instagram-carousel-photo-shoot-dump back in early September 2022 of Valentine Valero (@orientalismania) who is a baddie-model-researcher-archivist and who I think made the perfect muse for this portrait, I hope somehow she’ll get to see the painting