بعد از ۵۵ روز اقامت در کمپ، نام من و خواهرم نیز در لیست افرادی بود که به یکی از ایالتها برای ادامه زندگی منتقل شویم. ما بعد از سه روز به شهر روچستر ایالات نیویورک رفتیم
[Leaving Kabul by Marzia Rezaee: After 55 days in the camp, Sohaila and I got on the list of people to be moved to a permanent residence. Three days later, we were sent to Rochester, New York. About a hundred people were evacuated from the camp in New Mexico that day…]
Sometime over the past two years, something changed in me. As if I woke up and became someone else. A long period of being alone in my little studio folded me slowly, just like I fold and mould my clay. I started imagining life among my art pieces – I became my own subject.
A poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated from the Urdu and read by Mara Ahmed, with sound design by Darien Lamen: Dasht-e-Tanhai (The Desert of Loneliness) or Yaad (Memory) has always moved me, its words and metaphors like pearls strung together with elegant ease. It embodies Faiz’s style of writing: filled with glorious ideas of beauty and social justice but always fluid, unencumbered, songful.
Honored to engage in conversation with the brilliant Uzma Aslam Khan about her new book, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali, on June 28th at McNally Jackson Seaport in NYC. Beautifully written and part of the important process of decolonizing history and literature, Uzma’s book brings to life revolutions that have been erased and forgotten, and exposes the mechanics of colonial oppression.
On April 21, 2022 Rochester Contemporary Art Center hosted a virtual conversation with The Warp & Weft writers, artists and activists. They shared their reflections about 2020 and the inspiration/process behind their stories, and helped highlight the importance of archiving diverse voices and the crucial role storytelling can play in times of uncertainty and upheaval. Speakers tuned in from Gaza (Palestine), the Gambia, Ireland, Oakland (California), Rochester and Long Island (New York).
Released in collaboration with RoCo starting March 2021, The Warp & Weft is an online audio archive created and curated by interdisciplinary artist Mara Ahmed. It is a collection of stories from the first year of the pandemic that weaves together diverse voices, languages and geographies. Now a year later, with the coronavirus still with us and the world knit together as tightly as ever, we revisit the archive as a multimedia exhibition. Experience The Warp & Weft [Face to Face] at RoCo (April 1-May 7) and immerse yourself in a colorful tapestry of stories.
Join us for a rally activated by the war on Ukraine that condemns all wars, military occupations, and racist violence. This is an opportunity to be in community with diverse voices speaking their truth.
The following is a portion of the correspondence between Mara Ahmed and Claudia Pretelin. Ahmed is an interdisciplinary artist and activist filmmaker based on Long Island, New York. Claudia is an art historian, independent researcher, and arts administrator based in Los Angeles, California. Their correspondence is a collage of text, images, and references both literary and cultural. It is intimate and global, straddling distances between Mexico, Pakistan, Belgium and the US.
Pleased to return to the Witness Palestine Film Festival, on Sunday June 13 at 3pm, to interview filmmaker Mats Grorud and the Chair of the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS, Dr. Dina Matar. We will be talking about ‘The Tower.’
Le 1er février 2021, tu as tiré ta révérence. Seul, en compagnie de ton vieux chat, Indy. Pour moi, plus rien ne sera jamais comme avant. J’ai la sensation qu’on m’a amputé d’une part de moi. C’est douloureux. Nous deux, c’est une histoire qui remonte loin. 65 ans d’amitié.
[My More-Than-Friend by Paul Couturiau: On February 1st, 2021, you bowed out. Alone, with your old cat, Indy. For me, nothing will ever be the same. It feels like a part of me has been amputated. It’s painful. The two of us, it’s a story that goes back a long time. 65 years of friendship.]
A 50-minute presentation (including film clips) that talks about racial microaggressions through the lens of my upcoming film, The Injured Body (slated to be released later this year). The presentation will be followed by a 10-minute exercise (sparked by a multimedia piece involving dance, music, film footage and text), and we will conclude with a 15-minute group discussion that parses the group’s responses.
Listening to the reflections from The Warp & Weft has been rich and relatable. Stories of people’s shifts to a more introspective, slower and more connected existence, but also surrounded by grief, fear, racial unrest and confusion. Listening to Mara Ahmed’s moving “Connectedness” piece sparked something inside of me.
