A Letter for You When the World Gets Heavy On Your Shoulders

Growing up in suburban America, I held tight to my Arab roots and Muslim identity. I found sanctity in my other – I always had a thing for being distinguishable. I channeled my otherness in my academic pursuits, choosing to study International Politics and Middle Eastern studies while at The George Washington University. I cannot say I loved what I studied, but I knew it made sense. The narrative was true.

As a problem solver, I tried to pinpoint the source of many of the problems the region currently faces. I thought about colonialism, industrialization and urbanization. I thought about its geopolitical relevance, of MENA beyond a monolith, the diversity of cultures and religions dispersed throughout its hazily defined borders.

Today, I have deviated from my original academic pursuits. I currently live in Doha, Qatar working for the gorgeous Museum of Islamic Art – a hallmark institution in the region with one of the most encyclopedic collections of Islamic art. On a day to day basis, I am surrounded by the glorious contributions of the greatest minds from the Muslim world. I ponder, what would al-Sufi, al-Kinde, ibn Rushud think of the calamity that has ensued?

I feel slightly helpless in the face of the issues brazing headlines in the region. Apartheid in Palestine, sectarianism in Iraq, a lost generation in Syria, a hijacking of a revolution in Egypt, instability in Lebanon, passivity in the Gulf. In the midst of the sweetness of Ramadan, I have promised to challenge myself intellectually. Each day, I will write an equally informative and ruminative post on a bit of news transpiring in the region. This is intended to motivate myself and others to stay informed and opinionated about matters that should never be ignored, no matter how long ongoing.

 

[Opposite of Loneliness] : On Moving Forward

It was only a year ago that I came across Marina Keegan’s piece The Opposite of Loneliness written for Yale Daily news. We all learned of her death soon after. Her words continue to penetrate my thoughts. This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.

I came to my cohort feeling misunderstood. I was not too sure where I fit in this world of Muslims and non-Muslims, realists and idealists, Americans and citizens of the world. False dichotomies perhaps, but they ruled my world until I made it here. Here, I thought was safe, but soon enough, trickled in the apprehensions. I finally stumbled across an entire cohort of romantics, dreamers, and inspirers. Was there space for an introvert like myself? Was this space genuine, effective? I slowly receded within myself– uncertain as to whether the label of the creative was one I wished to carry.

Then came the intimate conversations, the unraveling of personal narratives, and the spotlighting of human insights. This youthful bunch, who once seemed years beyond my passions, talents, and dedication, became people who were in relationships, seeking love, breaking up and down. They enjoyed trying new restaurants, listening to top forty music, but some also swore off anything synthetic enough to make it to the radio waves.

As Jay-Z, alongside one of the coolest girls I have met, say, these people could literally have been anywhere in the world, but there they were, right here, with me.

I recognize the value in this serendipitous alignment, yet I have never been one to believe that an opportunity only comes once. I have a bewildering sense of patience, a sense that may frustrate many. Uncertain as to what exactly I wanted from this experience, I did not feel obliged to make swift moves and capitalize on the short time spent here. Relationships I believe should be organic, deep, and charged with chemistry.

Many of my classmates have naturally earned their spots on my speed dial list, many of them will be on the receiving end of lengthy emails, phone rants, or dramatically long reviews of the latest books, articles, plays, music, and films that I have consumed. Some will make treks across the Atlantic to come see me, and others – well, I will gradually shed my daily routines to join them in theirs.

In an effort to continue the conversation, I have taken it upon myself to acknowledge that it is not only about strengthening the bonds I have made while here, but it is also about having the courage to reach out months, years, or decades later to a classmate that I might have only spoken to briefly, because intuition inspired me to do so.

Moving forward is about recognizing that neither time nor space stands in the way of the maintenance, development or strengthening of a tie. Rather, apathy.  Stomp apathy.

I remind myself time and time again that the best moments of our lives are not behind us – they will continue to erupt. Our paths will all cross in due time. Cities, literature, experiences, both professional and personal will soon define our nexus.

From DXB, With Art

It’s crazy to think that this time last week, it was Dubai’s heat rather than frigid east coast temperatures keeping me off the streets. Wrapping up a week-long internship with the famed Art Dubai, I had the opportunity to mingle & mix with the region’s most avid art-seekers.

Dare I say it – but the Cartier exhibits, Abraaj VIP lounges, & exclusive beach parties were a little too everything for my taste, but the glimmering luxury did little to distract me from the 70 galleries that called the famed Emirate home for the week.

Take for example, Tashkeel – rendering creative energy for those in search, it stands as an exemplary institution committed to the cross-pollination of cultures. It was here that I met Nasir Nasrallah a telecommunications engineer turned story provoker. The local artist showcased his Story Machine: a fully functional vending machine, dispersing stories & found objects in exchange for 20 dirhams. He cites his childhood fascination of machines with his love for listening to the stories of the ever-evolving populations of the UAE as his main inspirations for the commissioned piece.

Or take the work of El Seed – the French Tunisian artist knighted for his waves in the realm of calligraffiti. Doting grand mosques, walls & other societal icons across the region with his colorful words, the artist was recently invited to fuse his work with the French fashion house of Louis Vuitton, making him the first Arab to collaborate with the brand.

Then came Zid Zid Kids the Morocco-based, trilingual, children’s, arts education specialists that I had the pleasure of working with throughout the course of the festival. Blending the magic of play into their commissioned exhibit, the design-duo sought to create a space that would engage children beyond the aesthetics of the arts, inviting them into a world of tinkering & exploration.

The list goes on, taken the over 75 international museum groups & over 22,000 individuals from 32 different countries in attendance. With a focus on the depth of the experience rather than the breadth, Art Dubai, for the country’s self-proclaimed week of the arts, stands as the epicenter.

In Search of More Sun & Maybe a Bit More Glam,

N

Yours From Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul

While scouring the streets of Istanbul, the goal in mind was to mingle a bit off of the beaten path. Those who hail that the typical tourist sites are not for their doing, speak nonsensical. Indeed to limit the musings of a city, town, or country to the faring of a single architectural element or public space would be elementary, but to dismiss the grandeur in its entirety would also be rash.

With the Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, & the Grand Bazaar all out of the way, it was time to dig into the human spirit of the city. Orhan Pamuk stands as one of the country’s most prominent & prolific writers, donning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. I dipped into his memoir Istanbul: Memories & the City prior to landing. Then came The Museum of Innocence: part novel, part museum.

Stumble across the eighty-third chapter of the book and your golden ticket will greet you, granting you free entry into the museum located in the neighborhood of Beyoğlu, off the, dare I say it, M street of Istanbul. A novel that tears away at romance, the reader follows Kemel’s passion for his beloved Fusun, as he obsessively amasses trinkets of his beloved.

Enter the museum & you will be faced with a golden wave, that is 4,213 cigarette butts, followed by eighty-three cabins, for each of the eighty-three chapters, brimming artfully with charms that reflect the story, & more so, the daily musings of a Turk, living in Istanbul, in the sixties and seventies, who loves.

Clocks, photographs, tricycles, milk bottles, beds, quotes, & such line the walls. Scattered copies of the book garnish each of the four floors, allowing museumgoers to stop & relive the words. The first of its kind, this museum stands as the wunderkammer of the city, teaching more than one-dimensional experiences through the art of storytelling.

Yours from once in Istanbul,

N

Pop Up Books

Those of you within earshot over the past six months can vouch for my inability to shy away from the mystique of pop-ups. Hazy-eyed? Fear not – bits like this, this, & this should elucidate.

I know I have some realists reading, so if Kanye & Jay-Z don’t do the trick, here’s a source your MBA professor will be proud of: Forbes.

It was only last week that a pop-up, popped before me. Harvard University welcomes its newest temp neighbor – The Labrary.

The brainchild of students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the space serves as an experimental opportunity to gauge the future of libraries & learning environments.

Dubbed the “Harvard library experiment” by co-teacher of The Library Test Kitchen seminar, the spot is a place where students and community members can talk to the changes that should be happening in the library domain. To me, it tempts the question of what future academic spaces should look like. Rather than just talking innovation, The Labrary tests it.

Typewriters, an aluminum den, beanbags, & tatted up walls, it is Cambridge’s perfect, academically- hipster, storm.

The due date is fast approaching – engage the space from 11 AM to 7 PM Mon-Fri until 12.21.12. This Friday – check in at 4pm, for a ‘Cast with Dov Charney, CEO, AmericanApparel.

N

Dream Catchers

Inspired by a recent bout of films, pleasure reads, & a rest-filled break – dreams are on my mind.

In a recent promotion created by Sprint alongside Digitas & Leo Burnett, moviegoers are greeted with a public-service announcement, prompting cells to dream on.

Simply text the word dream to 60602 before switching your cell off, & when you choose to switch your phone back on, you will find a personalized 15-second video clip that depicts just what your phone dreamt about.

The content behind these clips are pieced together based on your Facebook happenings, photos, interests, & the like.

Sounds like the future is here – no doubt. Midway through this week’s guilty pleasure, Michio Kaku explores the very likelihood of dream photography in national bestseller Physics of the Future.

Ephemeral images will be as easy to recall as a youtube clip, a mere 60 years into the future that is. Scientists have made moves – finally, the possibility of taking snapshots of our memories and quite possibly our dreams, is a a reality.

Scientists at the Advanced Telecommunications Reseach (ATR) Computational Neuroscience Laborartory in Kyoto have dabbled with an fMRI scan to record, with light pinpoints, where the brain stores its information.

In turn, a computer can decode these light patterns, and hence for the first time in history, dreams can physically enter our reality.

Hazy dreams turn feature films, but for now, feature films will inspire the dreams of our mobiles – giving life to the thought-inanimate.

– N

Algorithms & Netflix Welcome the Arts

Seasoned art lovers & neophytes welcome to the realm of pinning, tumbling, pandora-ing, netflixing & all other active social-media verbs.

Art.sy – the genome project of the Art world, unveiled as of recent, looks to make all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. Upon receiving my e-vite, I was ushered into the realm of Contemporary Pop – surprisingly, its first stab at my interests did not deviate far from target. The team made sure to sign off with a promising inscription though – our recommendations will get more personalized once we get to know you better!

Assured, I made my way through the stockpile of silkscreens, portraits, & other happenings. Browsing made easy, by simply selecting preferred style, or subject matter, or region, or technique or …

The gist, you get.

Carter Cleaveland, the Princeton grad with the brains behind the project, was at a loss when he could not find a piece of art to decorate his dorm room during his senior year. Years, celebrity support, generous funding, & academic investments later, we welcome the automated art guide. Some experts hold qualms over the accuracy of using algorithms to pinpoint the tastes of art connoisseurs  Others might shy away, fearful that the entire medium degrades the integrity of each piece.

I have little to argue on the anti-side of the fence. Art.sy is not to art what iTunes is to CDs or what Kindles are to books – merely, it is a cultural catalyst, a smile that beckons the stranger.

N

Beware of the Child

 

Yes, I am 22 years old. Yes, I am a master’s student. Yes, I live alone, pay bills, plan my own trips, do my own laundry, & all those other fancy grown-up things, but I feel not a day older than 7.

I also most definitely spent my Friday evening playing Apples to Apples amongst highly educated friends eager to dissect the intellectual void & the dichotomy of breadth vs. depth based learning. The paradox that is my life.

We underestimate the potential of a child. Ron Berger, in A Culture of Quality, talks to the success that a group of 6^th graders achieved. Alongside the guidance of a geology & earth sciences university, the class transformed into experts of radon – a colorless, odorless chemical that is the second leading cause to lung cancer in the USA.

Students soaked in the readings & the lectures. Sans examination, they conducted a research project meant to inform government officials & community members about the prevalence of radon. & guess what? They listened.

The published report was the first-known comprehensive radon picture of any town in the state of Massachusetts. The students turned researchers & authors were producing work of adult quality, again, at the age of 11.

Or take for example Jack Andraka, the 15-year-old Edison of our time. He shined the past week during The Case for Optimism in the 21^st Century panel during the Clinton Global Initiative. He was in the 8^th grade when he began delving into pancreatic cancer research. Seven months later, a new dipstick type diagnostic test is now the most effective, accurate & cost efficient means to diagnose pancreatic, ovarian & lung cancer. It only costs 3 cents, & again, he did this at the age of 15.

It is easy getting kids to create. It would be even easier if they knew they were creating for something grander than a grade or themselves. That very element will instill in them a pressure, to put out quality work. I am not worried about the kids. They are trustworthy, passionate, excited & eager to prove themselves. I question though, the world they would be operating in.

It seems as though the doors are shutting more frequently. How often do we dismiss the contemplations of others if they have anything less than a master’s degree from some Ivy boasting institution? Our credibility is in the brand. Unfortunately passion & experiences are stowed aside.

I can only assume kids are ready to make it happen. My doubts lie amongst those who pocket a measuring tape, eager to gauge the intellectual bandwidths of their peers & acquaintances. Let the critical eye of the youth burgeon, the hopeful heart of the child execute, & let the adults worry about things going poorly.

No Fame & All Play,

N

Forehead Turns Billboard – The Moral Showdown

As we drift towards chaos – bold indeed, but if you were to learn of the mother who sold the space on her forehead to an advertising firm looking to permanently tattoo their website for $10,000, I would hope to think there would be little room for discussion.

I am not here to dissect our market culture, but rather to assess what this tragic case of advertising gone wrong means. I ponder the dichotomies that tear our world apart – the distinction between right & wrong, understanding & learning, & believing & doubting.

I find that I have long felt comfortable in the gap between the aforementioned. You cannot go wrong if you play diplomat, & of course no one truly despises vanilla. But, playing it so safe is not so safe – it is actually quite dangerous. If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything. Some blatant situations call for affirmed decisions.

Selling your forehead is wrong. Paying a kid to read is wrong. Outsourcing a war to private contractors is also wrong.

Now this takes me to my week in readings. Peter Elbow dissects the intellectual enterprise, assessing whether it is the doubting or believing game that should be triumphant. Those who doubt, assume the presented information untrue in order to unearth weaknesses. This critical eye eventually leads to certainty.

In the believing game learners seek to find truths as opposed to errors. The doubting game, as he puts it has monopolized the sphere of intellectualism for the past amount of time and has left us detached, rigid, aggressive, & prone to adversary activity. He pushes for the flexibility, the yielding, & the floating- self advocated by the believing game. I typically would get it, but today I just cannot.

The believing game finds a sanctuary in that gap I had once called home, leaving room for the open-ended. Yes, classrooms should cultivate discussions & opinions, & we should become open-minded & compassionate individuals, but rigidity is in demand when it comes to the right & the wrong. This game of believing paves the way for you to believe any old nonsense – to follow the masses & rarely ever critically assess your self, your beliefs & what should be unanimously considered immoral.

As Baldwin suggests, take a rude position. Clenched muscles must precede an open mind, for if the mind remains open void of a grounded core, we merely waver in the wind.

Over the Fame,

N

The Artist Who Lived to Tell About it – Detroit & Recess for Grown-Ups

Artists acknowledge & work in the extremes. Whether it hatred, love, death, injustice, most people would just prefer not to dabble in these terrains.

As many of you might know, I am currently enrolled in a Master’s program in the Arts in Education. Upon receiving this news, family members & friends alike stood with their sideways glances, curious to know when, where & how I became an artist. 

I quickly confessed, no, no, I am not an artist I am merely studying the creative & the artistic process, in hopes of injecting that process into curricula in the Middle East/South Asia. Phew, that was a close one.

But now, readers, I think it is safe to say I am an artist. A disturber of the peace, as suggested by James Baldwin in his essay titled The Creative Process.  An artist by my definition, dabbles in the extremes, tears them apart, by any medium, to make them become. They become, to create relatable havens for those who feel or are curious to understand.

When plagued with an eruption of emotion x, or disturbed by situation y, or cannot quite seem to understand z, an artist will have created a space or place for you to enter, a place where you can relate, & not feel so alone. It is always easier visiting a new country knowing that your best friend is at the airport waiting for you, right? As artists, we have been there before, and create works, to tell about it.

Now these spaces or places that have been created for you, as I mentioned come in many forms. Songs, paintings, films, literature, clubs, organizations, & the like. Dr. Seidel points out in An Enlightened Dialogue in Dark Times how the research conducted by Perotti & Westheimer, points to drama clubs & their ability to provide students around the world with a safe environment. The drama club provides a haven for those not fitting into the mainstream culture of their school.

I question though, what is it exactly that makes the drama club so different? What aspect of the arts makes students feel safe in the classroom? Once pinpointed, can that aspect be instilled in other learning capacities to inculcate a love for learning across the board? For those students apprehensive to join the drama club or lack interest in the arts – is there no hope for them?

Well I suppose that is what I am here to find out. In order to stay true to the message of this blog of breaking the monotony, I was left inspired by the words of Moisés Kaufman, Imagination is the only thing that that will save us from ourselves.

Think beyond the possible, recognize what in front of you is not ok, & in order to close in on the gap of what should be & what is, work that brilliant little mind of yours. To jumpstart the inspiration, check out Hopscotch Detroit: building recess into city-life and causing collisions between businessmen, grandmothers & 5-year old kids. 

– N