installation

Second Skin

Second Skin features seven deconstructed columns crafted from scrim and plywood, each wrapped in a unique, hand-made Kashmiri silk rugs designed by the artist. Stacked and assembled in various ways, the columns "wrap power with power." The placement of columns in front of churches, banks, and museums can be seen as imposing and authoritative, training us to behave in certain ways in public. Prayer rugs and floor coverings possess a spiritual power that can be transformative at times. The use of scrim and plywood as construction materials also show a prop and staging quality to the columns questioning the symbol as political theater.

Privacy Control

Privacy Control references a brand of two-way mirrors adhesive. A standard trope in TV cop shows, such mirrors are used in interrogation and observation; they also separate gendered prayer spaces such as in mosques, where women can look out but remain unseen by men. Here, the mirror functions as a reflective selfie surface for the viewer, and the title implicates the tracking and surveillance inherent to smartphones. Khan’s wall text alters the usual English translation of protective verses of the Qur’an. Removing the racialized and gendered associations of the English version, it offers a decolonial, queered transcription that prompts us to ask, When is visibility a form of safety and when is it a harbinger of potential violence?

-Carmen Hermo

Braidrage

[Feat ] Dropped Ceiling

This installation took place for the Racial Imaginary Instititue in 2018. It was a lowered semi transparent flat mounted sculpture with a motorized sonic chandelier—comprised of wearable chains, speaker materials, and reflective plexi—on the ceiling at the entryway to the main galleries of The Kitchen, NYC. The shorter height meant to make the audience aware of the architectural surroundings and dampen sound.

Karaoke Spiritual Center of Love

Karaoke Spiritual Center of Love was a site specific installation for the In Practice: Another Echo exhibition curated by Allie Tepper at Sculpture Center, Queens, NY, 2018. In this show, a dropped ceiling sculpture called [Feat.] accompanies the room. Two entrances were made available, the main entrance which was at my waist line, making you have to duck under to enter. The second was in the back of the room and was ADA approved. The dropped ceiling, seen in this photo helped create an acoustic womb for the visitors. The custom lounge unit shaped with eight unique seating panels were made from pleather, my underwear, and mass produced prayer rugs, lined with LED lighting and built in sub woofers for the sound of the karaoke songs. These Seats were designed for the site at the Sculpture Center. Fourteen unique karaoke videos were made, tracks chosen came from mostly Caribbean and South Asian pop stars. The videos made for the songs captured the original Acoustic Sound Blanket suit performed in the location of a Richard Serra sculpture placed outside of The Fort Worth Modern, a contemporary and modern art museum in Ft. Worth, Texas. As a child I grew up in the triplex of Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Denton, witnessing many modern art buildings and sculptures placed, and then there was me - in these videos I am seen under my blanket fighting and loving Richard Serra. The music chosen is in the nature of soldering and fighting for one’s existence, with love.

As one enters the room, ducking under to get in, if seated you must endure the shake, and the booty quake, of the sub-woofers placed inside the lounge unit, the cabinets. The tops of the cabinets eventually come off and are later placed on walls.