Paper short abstract:

In Again, (looping video) and Pending Transaction (photography) a boat is assumed as a symbol of mobility and immobility, which represents the life experience of migratory process, its tensions, and the continuity of such. It refers to the uncertain state of an unfinished experience.

Paper long abstract:

In Again, (looping video) and Pending Transaction (photography) a boat is assumed as a symbol of mobility and immobility, which represents the life experience of migratory process, its tensions, and the continuity of such. It refers to the uncertain state of an unfinished experience.

Paper short abstract:

This piece examines the contradictions of dichotomous forms of mass migration and its cultural effects through the creative study of the Road and its implications—investigating RV camps in the United States. The poem/song intersectionality represents the spatial and temporal borderland of waiting.

Paper long abstract:

This piece examines the contradictions of dichotomous forms of mass migration and its cultural effects through the creative study of the Road and its implications—investigating of RV camps in the United States. The entanglement of past, present, and future is explored in the poem as written about a ‘fixed’ journey during the pandemic a year after it was abruptly ‘ended’ but is then extended in the form of a live reading. The “memory” of such event—as tied to the handling of the pandemic by the American government as well as in aspects of personal interaction—becomes a political road narrative. The poem can represent a hypermobility of memory yet also indicate a “temporal rupture” which cannot be accounted for illustrated by the surrendering of control of consistent and clear imagery, sound, and Internet connection in the recording of the poem. Thus the lapse in time between delivery of poem and hearing its musical interpretation, though live, simulates a “waiting” that presented a challenge to narrative motion and flow. The poem attempts to form a conversation amongst and between spaces as the guitarist from Nashville, Tennessee in the United States plays alongside the reading in London. The Zoom room can then be a formation of the “borderland.” Yet while recording, the sentiment of ‘if only we were in the same room’ indicates an impossibility of true intimacy— creating a gap in the recording and the collaboration. These tensions illustrate the larger implications of movement and the freedom of the ‘American road.’

Paper short abstract:

An autoethonographical play script that creates possibilities of resistance by reflecting on the mundanity of bordering, racialising and the intimacies it engenders by centering the author's experiences as an international graduate student from India (the third world), in the UK (the first world).

Paper long abstract:

An autoethonographical play script that creates possibilities of resistance by reflecting on the mundanity of bordering, racialising and the intimacies it engenders by centering the author's experiences as an international graduate student from India (the third world), in the UK (the first world).

Paper short abstract:

The essay attempts to answer the question "How does the ‘colonial cultural archive’ shape experiences and encounters in diaspora space?" through looking at what is and had to have been made invisible in the experiences of Chinese railroad workers in America and that of the author's own family.

Paper long abstract:

The essay attempts to answer the question "How does the ‘colonial cultural archive’ shape experiences and encounters in diaspora space?" through looking at what is and had to have been made invisible in the experiences of Chinese railroad workers in America and that of the author's own family.

Paper short abstract:

Using original photos taken mostly in Beirut, this collage was put together to highlight the different angles and fragments of Lebanese society, demonstrating the internal societal borders that exist between the constructed image of Beirut, and the reality for its refugees.

Paper long abstract:

Using original photos taken mostly in Beirut, this collage was put together to highlight the different angles and fragments of Lebanese society, demonstrating the internal societal borders that exist between the constructed image of Beirut, and the reality for its refugees.

Paper short abstract:

This project aimed to capture spaces and communities created by diasporas in Paris on film and frozen in time. The question of how space and time are implicated in im/mobility was explored through photographs of the 18th and 20th arrondisments, historically Arab and African neighborhoods.

Paper long abstract:

This project aimed to capture spaces and communities created by diasporas in Paris on film and frozen in time. The question of how space and time are implicated in im/mobility was explored through photographs of the 18th and 20th arrondissements, historically Arab and African neighborhoods.

Paper short abstract:

ferryman is a short-film that uses the decolonial practice of 're-reading' on an 'edge-land' of modern Britain, to reveal the centrality of this anonymous landscape to Britain's colonial past and present.

Paper long abstract:

The work engages in a form of rereading that deconstructs the origins of imperial expansion and domination, using the perspective of a ferryman who has for seven centuries continuously piloted the route between Gravesend and Tilbury, on southern and northern banks of the Thames respectively. The ability of the ancient ferryman to see time not in years but in centuries allows us to consider on a wider scale grand narratives of colonial change, and to consider foundational moments in the construction of the west. As such, the ferryman allows us to see and understand the structures that make up the ‘coloniality of power,’ structures that to this day organise social power relations. It also proposes a wider practice of rereading landscape, interrogating the historical processes and the contribution of colonial violences to the land around us.

Paper short abstract:

Graffiti forces viewers to reimagine and reframe spaces. The slogan ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’ reframes both former colony spaces and former metropole spaces through its unexpectedness. This slogan is imposed on photographs and objects to highlight colonial legacies and post-coloniality.

Paper long abstract:

Graffiti is “art out of place” the same way Mary Douglas tells us that “dirt is matter out of place.” Unexpected graffiti is often jarring and its incongruous presence highlights counternarratives that force viewers to reframe the where spaces they find it.

The slogan “no one is illegal on stolen land” came to the forefront of the political debates in 2018 in the USA over the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, two laws which guaranteed the rights, especially to education, of undocumented residents who arrived as minors. This slogan extends beyond this context – it drips with colonialism and post-coloniality, encompassing generations of land grabs, dehumanisation, and state-imposed disenfranchisement and violence.

I digitally imposed the slogan on photos from my travels around former colonies to underscore the impact of colonialism on those places, both historically and currently. The imposed phrase reframes the image, forcing the viewer to think about colonialism’s long reach. But colonialism’s impacts were and are felt in the metropoles as well. I took my slogan out into the real world of London, both out and about and into the British Museum, one of the most potent spaces of colonial legacy and post-coloniality. In the museum, I sought artifacts to match with my travels, and placed a homemade sign on or near them to reframe. I walked around London, finding the little legacies of colonialism that make our city, and placed my sign slogan there as well.