Selected Projects
LONG TERM ENGAGEMENTS
Wombs; Femicide Defined, 2017-2025 and ongoing
Wombs; Femicide Defined is a compilation of interrelated documentary and public works produced while overpowered by violently suppressive and silencing forces that began to crescendo in 2017 amidst worldwide backlash to progresses gained by women’s rights movements. While some are published or exhibited, Wombs; Femicide Defined comprises an expanding archive of media artifacts and objects that record experiences by using tools of my profession: documentary journalism, arts and education.
STUDENTS OUTSIDE BUREAU OF CHANGE IN NEW ORLEANS, LA
BUREAU of CHANGE, 2012-2024
BUREAU of CHANGE is my extracurricular higher education studio that activated apprenticeships in collaborative documentary and public art as a form of civic engagement. At BUREAU an interdisciplinary group—college students, recent grads, scholars and community experts—interacted to create socially and historically significant work. Under my mentorship as founder and lead faculty, projects emphasized digital media theory and technique, development of civic voice, and real-world experience for students through the professional presentation of public installations, museum exhibitions and other publications.
DETAIL, 526_GIFT SARAH CHOSE FOR ABDULAZIZ’S MOTHER. NOTE TRANSLATION: “DON’T DESPAIR, SOMEONE IN THE SKY IS TAKING CARE.”
After You’ve Been Burned By Hot Soup You Blow In Your Yogurt, 2005-2012
In 2005, I began an archive-based work that focuses on the complex relationships between detainees at Guantánamo Bay, their lawyers, the international media, and the public. In its most expansive form, my project is the largest privately-archived media collection portraying Guantánamo detainees through a lens of their legal advocacy. In the creation, curation, and distribution of this work in publications, exhibitions, screenings and site specific installations, I propose an experimental, artist-driven approach to the digital archive as a platform for social, educational and historical practice.
Mini Projects & Commissions
INSTALLATION DETAIL, SOCIAL SERVICES (WE ARE WHAT WE SEE) AT URBAN SIDEWALK | INSTALLATION SPACE, New Orleans
Social Services (WE ARE WHAT WE SEE), 2014-2016
Social Services (We Are What We See) is an interactive public art installation that reframes internet-sourced imagery of current affairs and reflects an interplay between what we are shown and what we see. It sets up an experiment around how we portray and share ourselves in social networks relative to our own image, our immediate surroundings and projected online images of others in moments of pain.
DETAIL, RETWEETHEARTS
Retweethearts, 2015
Created for Tokyo-based IDPW’s global interactive public art project, Internet Yami Ichi, Retweethearts is a series of two-page messages printed on fine writing paper, each with a text sourced from Twitter and a patterned page based on the tweet’s emojis. For the activation, I invited Yami Ichi visitors to select a Retweetheart of their choice and commission me to hand-deliver it within a two-block range of the market or mail it to a recipient in a security envelope.
VIDEO STILL, {THEATEROFWAR} SYRIA TV REMIXES MCCAIN TOWN HALL
{theaterofwar} Syria TV Remixes McCain Town Hall,2013
{theaterofwar} Syria TV Remixes McCain Town Hall is a study in political messaging, subtle means of propagandistic manipulation and censorship. I compare footage of a Syrian-American woman advocating to Senator John McCain for non-violent diplomacy in Syria with a lightly edited version of her speech broadcast by the Syrian TV station Alikhbaria (الاخبارية السورية). How aligned with the Assad regime’s message must the news be to pass censors in Syria? And how aligned with Youtube censors must a major Syrian news company that is state-sponsored be to avoid having its account deleted?
“POM (ALSO GOES BY GEORGE)” FROM OTHER GEORGE’S
Other George’s, 2007
In the summer of 2007, I traveled across Texas on commission by the University of Texas in search of establishments that share the name George. The project was conceived as a way to honor a large donor and prominent alumnus of the Law School, also named George, in lui of a monumental statue in his image. Other George’s is a long term photography installation at University of Texas-Austin and a limited edition artist book that includes notes from my interactions with the people I met and photographed at other George’s.
“SARAH AND NEHA” FROM THE SILENCE BETWEEN
The Silence Between, 2006
The Silence Between is a series of portraits of women in their 20s and 30s who define themselves as close friends and were drawn to participate in my record making. The project contemplates the role and responsibility of the photographer to those she photographs as intermediary, interloper and documentarian in a relational situation in which secrets are shared, verbally and visually, and distilled to a single image.
“UNTITLED (SHOWER)” FROM I DIDN’T NOTICE I WASN’T ALONE