“The Art of Weeping” collection emerged slowly, as I was grappling with multiple traumas due to living under a military occupation for twenty one years, and later having to migrate to the U.S. in 2004. While a graduate student in Women’s and Gender Studies at DePaul university, I started doodling in class to ease the flashbacks I was experiencing when reading course materials that discussed military and gender violence. Doodling was a way for me to avoid having to leave the classroom due to being triggered. Months later, doodles turned into sketches, and as a result, a collection of over forty complete art pieces came to life.

My drawings highlight the complex and multilayered traumas of women and their resistance against the intersecting systems of oppression manifested in the military machine, the patriarchal society, and the forced migration. My artwork is an act of decolonizing these bodies, including my own; as well as a creative form of struggle against oppression through transgressing boundaries, making the trauma visible, and linking it with collective and ancestral traumas.

In my work, I aim to make trauma visible. The cramped postures are due to physical, mental, and emotional restraints, in which some of these bodies appear deformed. This occurs when bodies are situated in spaces caught between multiple forces that collectively restrain and reduce these bodies, where their motion and mobility are restricted, and where life is reduced due to living in a militarized zone, a patriarchal society and/or forced to migrate.

“The Art of Weeping” is unapologetically about grief; it is an invitation to start a conversation about mental health. It is about allowing ourselves to fully experience our grief and create a space for our heartbrokenness. On the other hand, it is also about cultivating resilience and hope, so we can work towards a more just world.