not really here N.
Alaradi
Nada Alaradi
not really
here
Nada Alaradi insert
Introduction 8
Exhibition 10
Thoughts on home 21
(Amber Eve Anderson & Sara Al Haddad)
Amber Eve Anderson 27
Sara Al Haddad 40
Cici Wu 51
Yaser Alhasan 61
Images 82
Collaborators 94
not really
Where are you?
Traveled across oceans
In between spaces
neither here nor there
In between languages
Across times zones
Who are you?
8
here
not really here explores the space between flight and
settlement, knowing and not knowing, belonging
and separation, fulfillment and loss, as informed by
international migration. The exhibition title refers to
the state of being physically present, yet emotionally,
or mentally, elsewhere. Four conceptual artists,
resettled in the U.S. from other parts of the globe,
translate such intangible concepts into objects
that speak of their experiences, as well as their
perceptions of time and place. Each artists body of
work reflects a constant search for stability, home, or
belonging. Infused with a keen sense of absence and
nostalgia, the exhibition has particular significance
to those far away from their homelands, but also to
anyone who has felt like an outsider, or experienced
longing and loss.
9
Estranged Bike The wind blows through his coat
2016 and the ground does not speak
Bike, sevo motor, steel chain any of his languages.
and destinies are knitted with chains of estrangement
Estrangement weaves with destinys chains
Here, I am afar, nothing is familiar,
not the wind nor the water or even clouds in the sky.
I found myself at the edge of the night looking for a question:
How did I end up hereriding a bicycle?
10
Yaser Alhasan came to Savannah, Georgia from
Bahrain and continually finds connections between
his two homes. He uses found objects as a medium,
particularly overlooked and commonplace voiceless
Yaser objects, to empower and amplify them in a public
space. The experience of living abroad inspired him
Alhasan to experiment with various mediums such as oil paint,
printmaking, and photography. Alhasan attributes his
high adaptability to new surroundings, to growing up
in a family of mixed religious sects. He also writes
short poems about the conflicting, connected worlds
he inhabits.
11
We became mirrors
2016
Glass, cheesecloth, silver nitrate,
sugar, ammonia, silicone
I spent a 2 month period making hand-processed
mirrors. The labor process of making the mirrors
seems like preparation, or a waiting process. The
experiment allowed me to reflect on unknown
emotions. Subtle differences in real substances
where people feel tension, sadness, or a river of
feelings. I was drawn into moments; thinking about
life, as we grow, we sometimes become blind, deaf,
and ignore the people who are calling our names.
12
This is an excerpt from Cici Wu diary notes, in lieu of recording data
during her experimentation with mirrors:
a b
Cici Wu was born in China, and moved to the United
States to continue her artistic practice. She bases
her work primarily on her own experiences and
memories - she then strips her objects of personal
Cici relation, to invite the viewers to place their own
associations upon them. She takes inspiration
Wu from thoughts of emotion: desire, longing, love, and
memory.
She creates sculpture sets that invite the viewer to
re-approach experience through minute observations
and gestures. Mediated by the arrangement of
objects, each work invents a new dimension
for viewing the artifacts. The found objects she
collects have a sense of familiarity and speak to the
imagination from a distance. She gives them shelter,
temperatures, memories, and at times, even feelings.
Feelings to her is defined as something that reveals
the nature of life and death, the yearning for an ideal
life, and feelings of helplessness after failing to
achieve that ideal.
13
Originally from Dubai, Sara Al Haddad moved to
Baltimore in 2014. Her work comes from a very
Sara personal space and embodies internal struggles.
Al Haddad With vulnerability, Al Haddad abstractly depicts
private emotions through a practice that seeks self-
acceptance by dealing with emotions, fears, doubts,
and insecurities. Translating emotional states into
artworks, she re-navigates those feelings to produce
objects that are delicate and change according
to each new space they occupy The pieces, often
inspired by difficult social interactions or abruptly
ended relationships, transform raw emotion into
memories infused with clarity and resolution.
The finished object provides a sense of closure,
as the malleability and flexibility of working with
materials mirrors and bolsters Al Haddads emotional
process. Carving out a space of solace and comfort,
she creates, through her body of work, a sort of
repository, or home, for her feelings. That space,
rather than a specific place, is home.
14
passing clouds he said
ww2016
Stitched yarn, burlap, stones
Chain stitch 3
rw 1 - 3
inc 2
rw 2 5
M. 2007 2015
N. 2011 2015
T. 2011 2015
L. 2014 2015
G. 2011 2015
N. 2003 2015
M. 2011 - 2015
15
look at her
she looks as insecure as I am
(window 3)
2016
Concrete, nails, metal sheet
The space of entrance and exit. The point
of being in between; the place of figuring
things out, and attaching embellished
meanings. This piece is constructed
according to the dimensions of the
window in my current living space in
Baltimore.
16
Seabed
2015
Artist book (Unique edition of 30)
The bed is the most intimate of spacesthe ultimate
parameter for the body. Over the course of one month, I
took aerial photographs of my sheets each morning. The
space of the intimate became the place of the immense in
which the daily movement of the sheets stands in for sea
swirlsthe Atlantic ocean that separated my two homes.
After ten years of displacementsfrom Nebraska to the
East Coast, to Yemen, Peru, Syria, and MoroccoAmber
Eve Anderson feels her home is a sea of uncertainty.
Rootless and drifting, she adapts to such uncertainty by
carving out meaningful spaces of her own: a globe of
Amber Eve horizons, an ocean of bed sheets, a beam of holes in the
sky. Her experiences have coincided with technological
Anderson advances that can bridge distances with speed and
ease. But while these networks of connectivity make our
world smaller on a grand scale, our daily experiences
are altered as we exchange the everyday reality around
us for the virtual reality of our devices. Anderson feels
the tradeoff often amplifies the longing and loss, rather
than mitigates it. Her work depicts such exploration, the
state of being in between, not there, nowhere.
17
Les Souvenirs (Memories)
2016
The lipstick mirror of my grandmother,
A bonnet for birth/a handkerchief for marriage,
A braid of bison grass,
Matching set of Yemeni jewelry,
Good fortune from the red and black Huayruro seeds
of the Amazon,
The world, flattened for a suitcase,
Syrian keffiyeh,
A key to my hotel room homes,
International stamp collection A house=an address,
Not Fiji,
Yellow Moroccan balghas,
Found photograph with clouds, 1976,
Here nowfrom thencon mucho amor.
18
Bird Call (Migration)
2016
Sound installation
(402) 957-1848
Bird Call (Migration) uses
the telephone as a means to
connect with the sound of birds
in flight, migration being a way
to mark time and the changing
of seasons as one place is
exchanged for another.
19
Free to a good home
2016
Artist book, Classic 1940s sofa, Coffee table
Through this collection of objects offered and acquired for free to
a good home on Craigslist, I construct an image of home based
on the things within it. Everyday objects gain importance through
personal histories and associations. At times poetic, at times
mundane, the pages within document the ads and subsequent email
exchanges, offering a glimpse into the online interactions of the
anonymous. From a classic 1940s sofa to an underwater camera
case, the ephemera of one home assumes life in another, each object
connecting every home.
20
21
22
23
24
abstract ideas of home
25
26
27
Envoi
Imprisoned by four walls
(to the North, the crystal of non-knowledge
a landscape to be invented
to the South, reflective memory
to the East, the mirror
to the West, stone and the song of silence)
I wrote messages, but received no reply.
Octavio Paz
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
This is a process.
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
These images are referencing a trip I
had with someone I was in love with,
and we sold some hats in the streets
of Xiangyang, China.
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Chapter 1: Dont look back
63
64
65
66
Chapter 2: Displacement by choice
67
68
69
70
Chapter 3: People who come to America
71
72
73
74
Chapter 4: The day Sara invited the entire grad school to Eid.
75
76
77
78
Chapter 5: Let it rain
79
80
81
not really
82
here
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
Sara Al Haddad is a Fulbright Foreign Exchange
grantee and is currently pursuing an MFA in
artists sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of
Art in Baltimore. She received her BFA in Visual
Communication, concentration in Graphic Design
from the American University in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates in 2011.
Yaser Alhasan is an experimental artist, born
in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. He moved to
Savannah, Georgia in 2014 for his MA in Industrial
Design at Savannah College of Art and Design. He
uses writing to record and convert his conflicting
worlds into short poetry texts and uses found objects
as his main medium. The experience of living abroad
inspired Alhasan to experiment with new mediums
such as oil paints, print making, and photography.
Amber Eve Anderson is currently pursuing an MFA
at the Mount Royal School of Multidisciplinary Art
at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005. Her work has
been exhibited in Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, St. Louis,
Denver, and Washington, D.C.
Cici Wu, born in China in 1989, is an artist based in
New York. She graduated from the Maryland Institute
College of Art in 2015, with an MFA in sculpture. She
has exhibited in United States, Hong Kong, Ukraine,
and China. She is a practicing translator and she
archives books and video materials. She is co-
founder/curator of Practice, an artist-run space, in
New York City.
94
Born and raised in Bahrain, Nada Alaradi is a Foreign
Fulbright grantee pursuing an MFA in Curatorial
Practice at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
She received her BFA in Interior Design from New
York Institute of Technology. She has curated shows
in Bahrain, Baltimore and Boston. In 2012, Alaradi
co-founded and curated Ulafaa, a youth-based art
collective that promoted peaceful community through
artistic means. She has also worked on curatorial
curator teams for Bahrains Ministry of Culture and, in 2011,
was named an Art wResident in Jordan, where she
facilitated art projects for children in refugee camps.
95
Platform was founded in 2014 by Lydia Pettit and
Abigail Parrish on the first floor of Platform Arts
Center. Functioning as a commercial gallery, Platform
promises to create driving, thoughtprovoking shows
that question the relationship between artist, curator,
and community as well as providing opportunities for
Baltimore and regional artists to show their work. Run
by women, Platform is an open, safe space for artists
of all genre to meet and collaborate with community
members of any class, race, gender, or age in hopes
gallery of influencing future shows and programming.
Exhibitions span from new age artists that are
influential to contemporary art to curated historical
investigations of art in Baltimore. Platform promises
to excite audiences beyond the art community,
challenge convention, create new paths, and open its
doors to change.
96
Maryland Institute College of Art
MICAs MFA in Curatorial Practice prepares students
to take a responsible approach to the expanding role
curators play in creating a vibrant cultural life in the 21st
centurys global society. Designed to forge connections
among art, artists, and the community, the programs
collaborative and individual curatorial projects allow
students to explore new methods of exhibition
presentation-thinking outside of traditional models
and training to create relevant, timely and accessible
exhibitions for their audiences. This innovative
graduate program is the first MFA in Curatorial Practice
in the United States.
Founded in 1826, Maryland Institute College of Art
(MICA) is the oldest continuously degree-granting
college of art and design in the nation. The College
enrolls nearly 3,500 undergraduate, graduate and
continuing studies students from all 50 states and
57 countries in fine arts, design, electronic media,
art education, liberal arts, and professional studies
degree and non-credit programs. Redefining art and
design education, MICA is pioneering interdisciplinary
approaches to innovation, research, and community and
social engagement. Alumni and programming reach
around the globe, even as MICA remains a cultural
cornerstone in the Baltimore/Washington region,
hosting hundreds of exhibitions and events annually by
students, faculty and other established artists.
97
This book was published on the occasion of the
exhibition not really here at Platform Gallery,
Baltimore, Maryland from April 2 until April 24, 2016.
not really here is a graduate thesis project for and
supported by the MFA Curatorial Practice Program at
the Maryland Institute College of Art.
www.notreallyhere.us
Curator Special thanks
Nada Alaradi Rhea Beckett
Michael Benevenia
Thesis Instructors Wasan BuMadan
Jose Ruiz (2015-16) Shreyas R Krishnan
Marcus Civin (2014-15) Abigail Parrish
Lydia Pettit
Thesis Advisors Meltem Sahin
Cory Bernat Daniel Stratis
Gabrielle Buzgo Jen Sullivan
John Lewis James Williams II
Jie Yu
Program Director Jackie Zhu
George Ciscle
Photograher
Translators Helgi Olgeirsson
Najah AlArrayedh (Arabic)
Silva Matin (Spanish) Cover image
Robin Poponne (ASL) i just like sitting and thinking - K
Cici Wu (Chinese) Sara Al Haddad, 2015
98
not really here N. Alaradi
