“Tomorrow you will become a magic ney, I said but you did not hear me”

Single channel video installation / 10 min

2017

The experimental film “Tomorrow you will become a magic ney, I said but you did not hear me” is about the cycle of life from birth to death, and the beginning of the end. The abandoned sofa is a metaphor for the human body, in some cases abandoned before physical death. The sofas seat nostalgia, ritual, injustice, abandonment and liberation at the centre of life.

These sofas were intimate objects, giving comfort to their owner at home. Once discarded, they became out of place, vulnerable, thrown on the streets near garbage bins, losing their place and purpose. I was continuously drawn to the presence of the abandoned sofas in the cities I’ve inhabited after watching my childhood friend struggle with addiction and illness. Having witnessed the abandonment of her physical body, these sofas represented so much more than furniture.

Blending fiction and reality, the sofas held the untold stories we each carry in our physical bodies, separate from our souls. My childhood friend needed that journey towards death. It was her liberation. Her soul was seeking freedom. 

Linking the holy pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq and the cemetery Wadi El Salam in Najaf, notions of ritual, pilgrimage, and rites of passage was specific to my identity and spirituality. This practice informed this work. The historical and personal injustices suffered on the pilgrim path symbolizes the presence of strong faith in the context of suffering and sympathy. 

With the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish as narration, my intent with this piece is to instil hopefulness from the darkest of times for the living and the brightest for the departing. The mystery of the unknown is a reminder to highlight and practice good towards this existence and beyond to erase negativity and destructiveness; personally and universally.