As a continuation in the Interview Series, we interviewed Farah as part of our proposal to offer insight into how practising artists were coping with these unprecedented times. She has provided us with a window into her current practice and how she has repositioned with lockdown restrictions.

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1- Who are you? Introduce yourself

I’m Farah, I am an artist working predominantly with photography and video. I have recently graduated from the University of Leeds, gaining First Class honours in BA Fine Art with Museum and Gallery studies. I will be continuing in academia on an MA course, while creating artwork in my spare time.

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2- What is your artistic practice?- What drove you to work as you are now? How has this been impacted by lockdown restrictions and the pandemic?

My current artistic practise is auto ethnographical, in that personal experiences are collected through filming and collated to translate an autobiographical narrative to a wider cultural perspective. It explores dual nationality and the concept of a split identity that can originate from this. Through video, looking at the visual and auditory contrasts between my parents and the two sides of my family, it is evident from the areas that British and Arab culture intertwine, that it is possible to view cultural identity as a spectrum. Conducting these conversations was a way to re-associate with elements of traditional and modern Arab culture, since feeling mentally and physically separate from this, living in the UK. It was also to see how the British and Bahraini sides affect my personality and behaviour in different ways.

   These themes were not directly changed by the pandemic. However, the lived experience of my family is paramount to the personal exploration of culture, and therefore to my art practise. This is something that of course was impacted by the lockdown restrictions, meaning the communication, family dynamics and cultural aesthetics that my work is focused on, was only possible to achieve digitally through skype calls or voice-notes and messages. Though, I found that the restrictive geometric shapes of the digital screen seem to correspond and overlap with the aesthetics of the piece I made in lockdown, ‘Pea Fritters’, portraying the real communication between families.

   I thought displaying work was the main impact of the pandemic, since gallery spaces and studio spaces were no longer available to exhibit in, especially since my chosen form of display for my videos was projection. However, from experimenting with different spaces at home, it became easier to adapt display, drawing inspiration from the mundanity and familiarity of immediate surroundings. Such as my outdoor installation “Not Half, But Double”. 

   Also, displaying my videos through online platforms, such as Instagram and Vimeo, also seemed to be effective, showing the physical and psychological distance between family members and separate cultures, but also promoting the opposite: the accessibility and connectedness of social media ‘exhibitions’ as a direct source of contact. 

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3- What are you currently working on? (virtual exhibitions, creative movements, collaborative projects, maintaining production of work)

Since graduating and coming back to Bahrain, I have been using various social media to promote my artwork and working on improving my website. The most exciting opportunity was being involved in the virtual exhibition SHE 3, by Makan Art Gallery (@makan.artgallery) organised by Zakeya Zada. This is an annual exhibition celebrating Arab women artists. This exhibition showcased my self-portrait series, ‘Between Two Islands’.  However, for the majority of lockdown, I was in the midst of completing my degree (BA Fine Art with Museum and Gallery studies), so we were concentrated on changing our final degree show ‘SIMMER’ into a virtual exhibition. Check it out on Instagram @simmer.leeds  or   https://simmerleeds.com 

Most recently, I am working on a video-work exploring the feelings around travelling back ‘home’ and having multiple homes, and the privilege that comes with this, being able to cherry-pick parts of each home and culture to experience and having the ability to leave. This may be created with only iPhone footage, which I am excited to edit and experiment with. This will be premiered in my week-long online residency with @orrbbitt in August/September!

(https://www.instagram.com/orrbbitt/?hl=en) 

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4- What is next? – How, if at all, has this pandemic inspired further progression?

Though the pandemic is affecting the arts industry greatly and employment within the sector is already so competitive, I feel as though the seemingly daunting prospects for arts graduates that was made worse by the pandemic, inspired me to work harder to be a part of the industry, like thinking about the skills to lockdown, that will be employable traits when galleries and arts organisations open again. The extra time (with extra distractions) definitely helped me battle procrastination and improved my productivity.

   I will be continuing studying Art Gallery and Museum studies to MA level in September, but till then I will just be trying to stay creative and collect footage to create a new video work with during my online residency with ORBIT. 

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5- Where can we find you? Extra projects you are working on, social media, website, exhibitions you will be in, etc.

You can find me on @farahd_art on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/farahd_art/channel/?hl=en), which is where I post most art works in progress, any research I’m doing or books I’m reading.

There is my website https://farahfeb.myportfolio.com/ (and Vimeo account, https://vimeo.com/user106031468 ), where my completed video-works are posted, as well as previous exhibitions I have been involved in! There is also my LinkedIn for a more professional perspective: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farah-dailami-43044b151/