Pieces of Us
Stories from Yemeni Women
Curated by Tahani Almujahid, BA ‘22
Digital exhibition developed as part of UMMA’s Guest Instagram Curator Program
Farah Maktari
Cultural Reinvention I (2020)
Yemeni women in the diaspora, like myself, often look towards personal narratives and the materials and sounds of home to understand ourselves and our histories.
The textural and sensory connection to Yemeni identity is often missing in Western media coverage, which narrowly focuses on the destruction of the ongoing civil war. Instead, this exhibition celebrates those day-to-day lived experiences of Yemeni women through the work of six visual and sound artists: Thana Faroq, Denise Kynd, Farah Maktari, Aseel Mohammed, INDKNA, and Intibint.
Through photography, fashion, and music, Pieces of Us visualizes survival, creates community, and preserves a shared heritage across Yemen and the diaspora. Documentary photographer Thana Faroq transports herself back home to Yemen in her recent book, which features a powerful image of a stack of personal photographs saved by Yemeni women in a Markazi refugee camp. In the collage The Nomad, Denise Kynd memorializes her grandmother Zahra’s story of survival and resilience, connecting to her family across time.
Other artists, like Farah Maktari, use fabric to weave the history of Yemeni women together. In Maktari’s textile project Cultural Reinvention, the artist reinterprets the depiction of a traditional Yemeni niqab by using Bedouin veil patterns and decorations. Aseel Mohammed combines photography and textiles in her series Afifah. The colorfully clad woman framed in a dull gray apartment window celebrates the life force of Yemeni women.
Using experimental sound compositions in their song Almahfadha, Yemeni band INDKNA make listeners feel nostalgic for a place that feels familiar, even if they haven’t been there. Singer Intibint lets listeners into her experience of Yemeni culture and identity in her music video, Telling my Mother. Featuring portraits from her everyday life, Intibint explores her attachment to a place she left her heart.
As Yemenis at home and in the diaspora are forced to reckon with the destruction of their homeland, simply being is worth celebrating. This exhibition longs for Yemen. Connections to this place are made through photographs, textiles, and songs in which Yemeni women artists actively shape their experiences of reckoning and celebration. As these artists look for an understanding of themselves and their place in time, they, in turn, urge us to look towards our ancestors, to look within, and to remember where we come from.
View Exhibition on Instagram
See This Exhibition on Instagram
Developed as part of UMMA’s Guest Instagram Curator Program, this exhibition has both a website component (accessible above) and an Instagram version. You can view the Instagram version by clicking below and selecting “IG Exhibition” from UMMA’s highlights.
View Instagram VersionFeatured Works of Art
(2012)
At the center of The Nomad is a woman the artist describes as the epitome of resilience: the artist’s grandmother Zahra. Denise Kynd surrounds a youthful image of Zahra with images of stamps and passports, emphasizing, as the title of the work implies, her grandmother’s need to travel to survive. Zahra lost her father at a young age; as an adult, her husband left her with four children and many traumatizing experiences; she had to move and work three jobs to survive and care for her family at a time when it was frowned upon. Through collage, Kynd memorializes her grandmother’s story, celebrating the idea that to be a “nomad” is to be resilient in the face of adversity.
Credit information: Denise Kynd, The Nomad, 2012, collage on paper, image courtesy of the artist
Denise Kynd
The Nomad (2012)
Credit information: Denise Kynd, The Nomad, 2012, collage on paper, image courtesy of the artist
(2020)
Farah Maktari’s textile project Cultural Reinvention (2020) features a Yemeni-styled niqab and hood, in which Maktari unusually combines Bedouin veil patterns and decorations created from knitted and woven yarn, metal and plastic pendants and ornaments. Maktari brings together materials from broader histories of Arab women with her personal experiences as a Yemeni woman; like the way these fabrics are knitted together, Maktari depicts how vital women are in keeping communities connected. Through this project, Maktari finds a new way of celebrating traditional values in a new contemporary form, holding pieces of the past and re-imagining the future through this knitted work.
Farah Maktari
Cultural Reinvention II & I (2020)
(2020)
Surrounded by cold gray stone, a woman emerges from a dark window with a vibrant splash of color. Afifah (2020) is a series of four photographs in which Aseel Mohammed juxtaposes the dark and coldness of the woman’s surroundings with colorful fabric. In Afifah, which means virtuous in Arabic, the viewer does not have access to the woman’s space; instead,we are given glimpses of the woman’s form, sometimes repeated and overlaid, in each frame. Across each of the four images, Mohammed explores elusive forms of self and identity. Like the brightness of this fabric, Mohammed portrays Yemeni women as a bright force of life.
Aseel Mohammed
Afifah (2020)
(2020)
Yemeni documentary photographer Thana Faroq explores memory in her book, I don't recognize me in the shadows (2020). In this photograph from the series, multiple images are scattered on the ground. All of these pictures hold memories of faces and places in Yemen and were saved by Yemeni women living in the Markazi refugee camp that Faroq visited. From birthday parties to weddings and social gatherings, these photographs transport the refugees back to the home that is distant in space, but not in their hearts. Attempting to collect her own memories and those of others, Faroq is able to construct a temporal belonging to Yemen.
Credit information: Thana Faroq, I don’t recognize me in the shadows (excerpt), 2020, published book, image courtesy of the artist.
Thana Faroq
I don't recognize me in the shadows (2020)
Credit information: Thana Faroq, I don’t recognize me in the shadows (excerpt), 2020, published book, image courtesy of the artist.
INDKNA
Almahfadha (2021)
INDKNA’s song Almahfadha asks the poignant question: “what do you know about home?” Sung in the Adeni dialect while combining Yemeni music from various genres like electronic, jazz, to hip-hop and classical Arabic sounds, INDKNA offers alternative and empowering narratives for Yemenis. The band’s lyrics discuss the things they forgot at home—beloved material objects like wallets, bags—and shifts to forgetting more important things like their reputation—how to act and speak properly. Like references to local peaches or the stories that remind them of life in Yemen, the vocal repetition of these cherished memories makes us feel as though there is a loss of and a longing for home. View the lyrics in English and Arabic.
July 2021 virtual live performance co-sponsored by YallaPunk and the Arab American National Museum
Visit Artist’s websiteIntibint
Telling my Mother (2021)
Telling my Mother gives us a look into Intibint’s personal world through song and images. The video is shot on a camcorder, giving a casual and atmospheric feel. Featuring many intimate pieces of the home—from the Yemeni tapestry, bukhoor, to Islamic religious symbols and books on Yemen—as well as images of herself, the video paints a portrait of the artist’s everyday life. Attempting to navigate her Yemeni and British identities, Intibint also highlights places in her adopted home of London throughout the video. This is a combined musical and visual work that explores Intibint’s true self.
Visit Artist’s Youtube channelAbout Tahani Almujahid
Tahani Almujahid is a Yemeni-American creative from Dearborn, Michigan, with interests in Yemeni narratives, history, and popular culture. She is a senior studying English and International Studies at the University of Michigan, with her eyes on graduate school in English. In her free time, you can find Tahani reading poetry and drinking chai at Vertex.
Support
Lead support for this exhibition is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch. It was developed as part of the Guest Instagram Curator Program.