An exploration of the contrast between appliqué and bricolage in creation of Khayamiya, Pomegranate focuses on a common pattern within the form, repeating within 8 geometric sections.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHwKAgeq7tM[/embedyt]

5mins, 2017

The work considers the contrast between weaving and sewing as creative activities: Pomegranate attempts to return the khayamiya to a point of origin, artificially reuniting artifact with raw materials. As most of these craft items are not considered high art, there is often little information to assist in identification – so identity cannot be constructed through provenance. Imagining a point of origin is a representative act; considering migration, diaspora, and cultural detachments that occur when we become disconnected from our histories as people.

I completed animation on this film in 2017, and now that it has had some gallery exhibitions and festival screenings, I have put the video online.

Khayamiya exhibit geometric patterns that seem to be inspired by nature, not unlike art deco or art nouveau. Some of the motifs present in khayamiya are commonly associated with other parts of the world, such as the fleur de lis. Khayamiya begs interrogation as to the origins of such motifs. In seeking to reunite the form to the materials, I am attempting to construct a space of creative genesis: the moment of fabrication. However, a metaphysical reconstruction does not present real answers. It mimics the desires of the human to return to points of origin in culture and environment lost in migration. As we evolve as a global society, details of culture are reduced and lost. Pomegranate considers this reduction and elision of identity, which may be equally detested and romanticized as a future-form of ‘culture’.