Three of my works, two electric light works and a textile piece, have gone into private and public collections recently, and I found myself wondering if I'd ever see them again.
Certainly I can hope to see the Joni Mitchell piece On a Rock Floating Through Space, 2017 in my lifetime, as the not-for-profit Maraya Arts Centre in Sharjah has a great record of displaying its collection and finding new ways for the public and artists to engage with it.
Mitchell's song lyrics which I heard and then read as a teen, have remained with me since surfacing from time to time when the moment is apt. I regard Joni Mitchell as one of three of the greatest song lyricists of my time. The title of the song Hejira, and title of the album, is taken from the Arabic word for journey. Although the word hijra usually referring to the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622, the song describes a long car journey Mitchell made and the realisations that came to her while in that limbo:
Certainly I can hope to see the Joni Mitchell piece On a Rock Floating Through Space, 2017 in my lifetime, as the not-for-profit Maraya Arts Centre in Sharjah has a great record of displaying its collection and finding new ways for the public and artists to engage with it.
I'll never forget that it was on the first floor of Maraya, which was a drop-in study centre, I first met encountered youngsters from all the Emirates gathering in one place. That seems important when you know the country at a certain proximity.
When we opened Stitches to Save 9 With, the exhibition in which these works featured, arts writer and curator Mahnaz Fancy held a really insightful Q&A with me on the works and we listened to extracts of the music that had inspired the pieces. After which the amazing cellist Clara Asuaje performed an improv piece with me in reference to the film Electric Dreams.We all come and go unknownEach so deep and superficial between the forceps and the stoneWell I looked at the granite markers,Those tributes to finality, eternityAnd then I looked at myself hereChicken scratching for a piece of immortality[...]We're only particles of change I know, I knowWe're just orbiting around the sunBut how can I have that point of viewWhen I'm bound and tight to someone.
