The Beauty of Being Lost Is Like Honey on Watermelon

I’ve always been lost and not in a hurry to find my way. As a child, I accompanied my mother on grocery trips, wandering off until my mom would tie my hand with her long scarf or promise to give me candy if I didn't leave her side. The art of staying lost is an essential part of my multimedia performance practice. This theme of finding beauty while lost is intertwined with my life and career as an artist.

I was born in Saudi Arabia, and my family was deported back to Somalia. Shortly after, the Somali Civil War broke out, and our world was flipped upside down. My family and I experienced civil wars, droughts, famine, and refugee camps all before I was ten years old. What saved me was listening to my grandmother's storytelling at night. I listened to stories of humor, trickery, peace, brevity, and hope while the war raged on in our world. My illiterate grandmother's storytelling taught me that we’re more than our circumstances and if we can imagine it, then we can achieve it.

I create art out of my most painful experiences to connect communities, spark conversation, and create meaningful relationships between refugees and Americans.
 

Then, my family came to the United States to get a second chance at life. Growing up in the United States was a blessing in disguise amid many tribulations. We constantly moved, looking for better jobs and safer neighborhoods. I went to two middle schools, three high schools, and three colleges. Minnesota was the first place my family and I found true solace within a supportive community, seemingly ending our nomadic journey within the states.

I found my calling in life and chose a non-traditional career path as a Somali American female performance artist in the United States. As a working artist, I use storytelling to build understanding, empathy, and connection within my Muslim and greater American communities. My artwork is informed by my lived experience and that of my communities of Muslim, refugee, Black, and Somali immigrants. I create art out of my most painful experiences to connect communities, spark conversation, and create meaningful relationships between refugees and Americans.

My proudest work, How to Have Fun in a Civil War, is a play about Somali history seen through the eyes of refugee children. I delve into childhood resilience and the power of intergenerational storytelling. It has given me a deep insight into bringing out the hidden complex identities and resiliency of Black Muslim refugees in Minnesota. This work stems from my own childhood memories and underscores the necessity for communities affected by civil wars to share their stories as a path to healing. We cannot heal from what we do not reveal and acknowledge. 

My film-infused installation Can I Touch It, examines the everyday transgressions experienced by people of color and Muslim women. This multimedia work, featuring film, audio, fabric, and willow branches, reflects on the invasive curiosity and microaggressions often faced by these communities. Through this piece, I invite viewers to engage deeply with these experiences, fostering a space for understanding and empathy.  Halima Smiles is my interactive mobile film-infused woven puppet that collects the public's response to what makes them smile.

In receiving my artistic work, former refugee audiences were reminded of their own experience and wanting to start a conversation with their own children. Non-immigrant educators discuss how deeply their understanding of refugees has shifted. My artwork makes the global local and the personal universal.

During college, I started volunteering in an elders-first English classroom, I fell in love with the teaching profession and pursued a teaching degree. I am now an educator to East African elders. They have taught me so much about Somali culture before the civil war. My beginning teaching years were simply hell. At this point, I was Americanized and barely used Somali to communicate with my students. It was hard for these elders to accept a Somali teacher with wind-loving exposed curly hair and tight jeans. Every day, these elders called me cultureless, part of a lost generation simply because I looked like and sounded like I was rejecting a culture they loved, our culture.

Little did I know that they would end up teaching me Somali simply because I needed it to defend myself as the elders gossiped about me in Somali. Perhaps revenge is a good motivator to relearn your lost language. As part of a diaspora, I had this deep feeling of being othered by all: I wasn’t Somali enough for the Somalis and wasn’t American enough for the Americans. I simply had nowhere to exist. I need it to express myself. Most days, I felt deeply shunned by all communities. That, combined with the slow discovery of the institutionalized harm within the education system that unfolded through my learnings, meant I just felt like a ticking bomb most days. I wished I had an outlet. I would go to dance and dance vigorously, but still felt constipated with feelings of anger and despair. I would often frequent open mic events on campus and sit in the far back, in awe of the bravery of the young poets sharing their innermost feelings with so much literal poise.

Thereafter, I got a job marketing theatre to the East African community. I thought, “I already spend so much time in the East African area, so this will be easy earning for me.” But this was the most difficult job to do. Nobody in this community wanted to go see what theatre white people are creating. I was essentially hired to get more East Africans to watch plays. Watching these plays, which often featured African American actors, I recalled listening to my grandmother tell me stories at night in Somalia during the Civil War era. There’s something extremely familiar, beautiful, and simply soul-feeding about our shared struggles.

Small and mighty acting roles started to emerge for me, the types that theatres give untrained actors. I played toilet paper, part of a snake, and, my favorite, a Nazi student who spits like a sailor. Most of the theatres that gave me these first opportunities no longer exist. They folded because of the pandemic or the unforgivingly harsh funding environment in the US arts ecosystem. I loved these theatre spaces that are dissolved now, whether it be Patrick Cabaret, or Intermedia Arts. These small, under-the-radar, community-based, and fiercely independent institutions are what made it possible for artists like me to get their start. It’s because of these places that now, as an artist, I am able to interrogate the past with gentleness and weave the future with a sense of hope.

When I think about that hope, I often find myself working through the impact of trauma on identity formation—how traumatic memories, for instance, carry themselves through one’s present life.

I simply wish to rest. To create art that is about exploring joy and exposing healing, not from a place of having to prove my humanity. Art that simply is soul-feeding, like honey on watermelon.

The Somali hut, or "aqal," is an integral part of my work and symbolizes the essence of my cultural heritage. The aqal is a traditional nomadic structure, a dome-shaped hut made from natural materials, showcasing the ingenuity and adaptability of Somali people. My artistic interpretation of the aqal, My Aqal, serves as a bridge connecting individuals to the global refugee crisis, encouraging them to imagine the process of building a home for someone in need. It reflects the resilience and resourcefulness of my ancestors who made homes wherever they were, using their hands to weave a life from what nature provided.

We Muslim Americans do not experience gentleness when it comes to the exploration of our stories, our beliefs. Instead, we are pigeonholed into proving our innocence and proving the existence of peace within our value system and our private lives. I simply wish to rest. To create art that is about exploring joy and exposing healing, not from a place of having to prove my humanity. Art that simply is soul-feeding, like honey on watermelon.

My latest project, the first permanent Healing Aqal[hut] in rural Minnesota, embodies this philosophy. This project is a combination of everything I’ve done. It speaks of my cultural heritage, the way my ancestors equitably coexisted with nature, the way they wove with their bare hands, and made homes wherever they were. There is an imaginable abundance in nature, which blooms people's hearts to be endlessly generous in kindness towards other beings. I’m trying to unearth my ancestors’ ecological wisdom of using nature as a tool for healing. I’m trying to create a home for our collective healing, and I’ve only arrived at this journey by allowing myself to just be lost.

Finding beauty while being lost has been the core of my journey. Through allowing myself to be immersed in whatever life brings, I have discovered gems that have shaped my career and my art. This theme resonates deeply with my experiences, both personal and professional, and continues to guide me in creating art that connects and heals.