2027 SPE Annual Conference: Community in Contrast
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print this page"I CAME HERE LOOKING"
Student Presentation
Friday, October 23 - 4:30PM to 4:40PM
WCAD 101
There is a proverb that says, "You came to light your lantern and not to look into the house owners' affairs", this is what is expected of a visitor. This will be a talk on my journey as a migrant first, then an artist trying to make sense of the maze of life as an immigrant. The main goal is to just focus on your purpose of being here, to study, to work, or to experience and nothing else, but that is never that simple. As a mere mortal, you can't control everything in a place not home. Changes happen at every moment, derailing you from your path and leaving you to be on a constant scattering and gathering journey.
You will be left dealing with the grief of losing a mother, the distance will cause a disconnect with yourself and identity on all sides. You are told to make a home where you are, but what is a home when nothing is certain? There is one question as an artist I ask, "What is the role of the artist in this story? Am I showing the grief, do I investigate the memories, do I give hope for the future, what is my duty?" When I started making work here in West Texas, I had no idea what my works would evolve into and it keeps on.
I will start with one of my series titled "I want to go home", which has a metaphorical black paper boat that has the energy to transport me to home, to the past and future. The boats were built with the promise of moving, but when put in here they are objects of the impossibility of migration, the obstructions faced, and the drift into uncertainties.
The talk will also be around how I have been using my photography as a visual catalyst in my mixed media and installation works. An example is "Haka Dunia Enterprise", a piece made of a vintage sewing machine threaded to a long fabric scroll bearing family archive photographs of my Ghanaian life. It is personal, also about something larger than one person's story. The cycle of life doesn't stop with the exit of one, the machine is not broken permanently, it repairs and keeps going.
Another piece will be my cabinet work from the "Ma Famile" series. A wooden display case opens like a book, worn and faded family portrait. No faces, but the spirits are here for me. The cowrie shell is incidental, it is among the oldest forms of currency in West Africa, traded across the continent and across the Atlantic. What is a person worth?
speaker
Ameen Abdallah
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