Artist’s Statement

My body of artwork, rather than a statement, is a question—who am I in relation to my heritage? It is a reflection of my estrangement from my identity as a Palestinian and a Honduran, and an attempt to understand my connections, or lack thereof, to my homelands.

To evaluate my connection to my heritage I began researching current news in Palestine and Honduras; my first four pieces depict my reaction to what I uncovered, consisting of gel transferred photos of Palestine and Honduras and applied marks on top. I looked inward in my next works, writing pages in my sketchbook to understand my distance from my heritage. I photographed myself in my pieces and added layers of collage and sanding behind photos of Palestine and Honduras that I found in my research to simultaneously reveal and obscure the complexities of my dual heritage. I experimented with different narratives by inserting myself into my heritage, observing my indifference to it, and reflecting on my physical distance from it.

I sought to come to terms with my ignorance of what it means to be “Palestinian” or “Honduran”; through this self-ethnography, I became more aware of my ties to my heritage.

The progression of these pieces begins in chronological order, from when I first investigated my estrangement from my identity to my latest work concerning my heritage.

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Works