Photography and interview by Samra Habib
Who: Saba, Durham, North Carolina
I'm an American Queer Muslim Southern artist and those identities influence my work. For a while, my art practice revolved around painting portraits that aimed to humanize, make visible, and uplift American Muslim women. Then I got to a bit of a breaking point, where I felt really annoyed at the fact that “humanizing Muslims” was considered groundbreaking, and felt resentful of this pressure to send a palatable and “respectable” message. So I started to really let go and shed those burdens. My work became darker, more grotesque, and more intuitive. Now, I feel a lot less pressure to make things “make sense” to others, and allow myself to get lost in radical imaginings of revolution (or apocalypse) and the future.
A while ago, I had an idea to make hybridized burqas made of “western” materials. My mother is an incredibly talented seamstress, and I had very little sewing experience at the time, so I asked for her help. It was a pretty amazing collaborative process. I had a clear cut vision, and she had the skills and the experience to make it come to life, and was able to pass a lot of those skills onto me. We were working together, understanding each other (mostly), but literally speaking different languages to one another. We mirror each other in so many ways, but sometimes it feels like there is an ocean between us. There was a distinct intention on my part to also just connect with and spend time with my mother. We both love to work, so to be creating together was one of the best experiences I’ve had with her.
In the original performance with the burqas, myself and two other Muslim women wore the garments while standing silently on pedestals. We thought a lot about power and the white gaze in constructing the performance. The audience was instructed to ask for permission if they wanted to touch the garments, and upon asking, they were given a nod or shake of the head. Most people received a no from the women.
I love wearing the hijab. I love how it looks, how it feels on my head, and I love that it makes me feel so connected to my Muslim identity. I’ve worn it off and on for some time (just when I felt like it), but since Trump has been elected, I have been wearing it every day when I am in public. It is a bit counterintuitive, in that it draws attention to my Muslim identity and thus potentially opens me up to harm (as hate crimes against Muslims have significantly increased over the past year), but it feels like an act of defiance and oddly makes me feel safer.
I think right now, like many folks in America, I am balancing a lot of different feelings. There is fear for what this administration is going to do, and how that will impact me and the people I love. I’m scared about hate crimes, about healthcare, about same-sex marriage and reproductive rights being negatively impacted, about voter suppression, Muslim registries, and deportations. It is a really sobering time, seeing how power is operating in this country and how important it is that we get organized so we can take that power.
I’ve been in North Carolina my entire life. There are a lot of challenges and fears, to be sure, but I love that I am born and raised in the South. As I’ve gotten older, I feel more deeply that this is my state, and that makes me dedicated to stay here and make it better.
The night of the US election, I went to sleep around midnight. The next day I was incredibly tender, I had to run a few errands and I was crying off and on through the morning. There was a gathering in downtown Durham called “Not My President.” We had conversations around belonging, anger and fierce love, had space for folks to smash stuff. There were a ton of new faces, indicative of how galvanizing this moment has been for so many.
I reached out to friends, and called on folks to come to the Durham Artists Movement (DAM) to make art together as a healing exercise.
DAM is an arts collective that is predominantly made up of queer people of color, with a mission to uplift the creative voices of marginalized people by providing a safe space to create, exhibit, and be in artistic community. Thus far we have offered public workshops, hosted performances and exhibits, art salons, and reading circles. It was healing to just be together, and powerful to turn that into creative energy.
My partner Laila is also queer Muslim. It’s amazing to have a Muslim identity in common, and it’s lovely to make Muslim jokes with a partner who understands although we come from really different backgrounds. I am a non-black person of color, first generation American who grew up in a bubble of class privilege and those things in particular have really impacted my experiences, and are in clear contrast to her experiences. It’s those differences that keep us growing. She’s able to challenge me and also lift me up, and is a role model for me in so many ways.