عورت کا کام | aurat ka kaam | a woman’s work
Welcome to my installation entitled عورت کا کام | Aurat Ka Kaam | A Woman’s Work; I’ve staged this space to be both a domestic living space and a creative workspace. My work explores the areas between my female, Muslim, Pakistani, Canadian, and American identities. In this installation, I’m bringing together my code-based visual language of geometric shapes, patterning, and bright poppy colors with traditional Pakistani textiles in an attempt to navigate the disconnects I feel from my traditional and cultural backgrounds. I’ve lived most of my life with uncertainty about how they fit into my life as someone who has immigrated to America and was born as a first-generation immigrant in Canada. I’m trying to understand the intersections of the different facets of my identity. Piecing together who I am and want to be by learning from my ancestry, lived experiences, mental health, and familial, societal, and cultural expectations.
A few years ago, I was having a conversation with my parents, I don’t remember the context of this conversation, but at some point, during the discussion, my mom said عورت کا کام | aurat ka kaam | a woman’s work. And at that moment, I felt compelled to write it down with the intention that I would make art around it. I had forgotten about this intention, but this idea popped back into my head when I started considering domestic spaces in my work. Woman’s work is such a loaded phrase with a lot to unpack. I started thinking about women’s work within the context of my family. Women are expected to be wives, mothers, and homemakers. They dedicate their lives to their families, with little regard for themselves and their interests. Their domestic spaces and traditional clothing are where they have the most control and freedom of expression. As a child, I was always fascinated by the different creative projects my mom, grandma, aunts, and cousins took on. I learned how to cook, bake, sew, and other DIY and craft skills by observing and assisting them. Thinking about this now, I’ve noticed that creativity lives within the home for many women, for me, I’ve connected most with the “maker” in homemaker, and it’s led me to become an artist.