gothlime

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My (personal) Quest for  “FUTURE”

What does the FUTURE mean for those of us who can’t imagine ourselves in it? 

I am Currently researching the concept “FUTURE”. This is just a digital scream to the void. A blogpost for FUTURE me to answer.

  The FUTURE is something that hasn't arrived yet. IT doesn’t exist. Multiple versions of it exist but they’re pending. Uploading this post on my blog means that regardless of when its read-it too is part of the FUTURE. In early 2000 i watched the film Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, although I was a child I still felt a wave of disappointment at the current situation I was in. There was no world like Zenon’s. She claimed to be of the 21st century but here I was using my dialup connection to play games on kidsWB. I think that’s the first moment I felt constant disappointment for the dreams of FUTURE.  Granted I was living 50 years before Zenon in the film but I found it deeply ironic. I keep remembering that film whenever I think of the FUTURE.

One of the things I’ve been trying to get a language for is the concept of NOSTALGIA. 

We’re on a loop of constant reminders of a past we* never will experience, it’s etched in our iPhones. Our Spotify accounts have a throwback playlist. We have mixes we play just to remember an era regardless if we were experiencing it or not. How does one remember the 70′s if they never existed in it. How does one remember the 90′s if they never lived in it? Is it the stories carried out or are experiences tied to commercials, political events, fashion or music? So is our past only tied to those factors?  “Only 90′s babies understand” Loops of digital soundscape that was used in the 80s are more appealing to us now. Every decade reuses another decade’s fashion. It’s a constant borrowing of another era. Sometimes I think the best documentation of our own collective culture is via memes. We’re actual starter packs?  What I’m trying to understand is the FUTURE. How we plan for it. Who’s included in this FUTURE? Who are we afraid of? More importantly what about those who can’t picture a future with themselves in it. They can’t imagine a FUTURE that is a construct of this. How can we imagine a FUTURE when we’re still are in the early stages of destroying the structures that keep us from achieving that FUTURE? Will White Supremacy exist in that FUTURE? Will we decolonize fully? Will religions be a part of that FUTURE? Who controls this FUTURE? Is Late Capitalism  destroying and halting our FUTURE? I listen to hours and hours of music of pasts I will never experience. I spend hours watching footages of eras I will never experience. It becomes a part of me. Influences me. Yet there’s that voice of mini me in early 2000 asking “Where is the FUTURE”. Imagination is crucial. Maybe I need to step back and question my consumption of music and art that won’t really pull me into imagining another world yet to come. I am guilty of a specific aesthetic that I use in my art but most of it is questions I keep having. I like to play with Nostalgia but I also like to understand FUTURE.  *(the we is not universal)

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Cyber @ Glitch, Bristol, UK (June 17th 2017) Art Balaayo Exhibition @ Red Door Studios, London, UK (May 5th-May 14th 2017)

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This Ramadan so far I learned that, I am forever going to change. I also learned that Love is an energy that changes into a different forms of emotions. It does not die. It just changes. It’s okay. The Warsan Shire poem makes more sense now. Better to be terrifyingly beautiful.

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Enter, June 4th 2017. I went out with my mom to buy some material for her dress. I found the entire place eerie. The shops are facing the middle but there’s nothing there. It’s torn and worn out. It feels like it’s half finished. It was a fun thing to do. 

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Hands in Space. Ramadan 2017 (June 4th 2017) I scanned an old CD and my dad’s copy of a local Qatari newspaper-Al Rayyan. I haven’t explored space w/art or anything since I find dark backgrounds really terrifying to work with when doing collages. 

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Hi I was interviewed by Bigmouth comix. I just wanted to share since I haven’t updated anything on this blog in a while. But yeah here it is!

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I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it.

Margaret Atwood (via thequotejournals)

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To be young, gifted and black: Notes on when you’re down

So I’ve been trying to remind myself some things. Like repeating it to myself. “You’re young, gifted and BLACK!” You’re GIFTED and SPECIAL. You’re UNIQUE. I think I downplayed my own abilities for many years because I wasn’t comfortable with it but I also think being humble is important. But many of us were born with certain things and sometimes it’s made to uplift others.  If god gave you a heart that’s so open and warm don’t ever feel ashamed for the way you are. Whenever you feel like life isn’t worth living just remember that you’re here for a reason and do whatever you can while you still are here. I used to apologize for taking up space. I actually would find the comments as something personal but honestly fuck it.

My mother told me something really important recently when I told her about my depression she said that “you’re just a little bit more weird-like your father. some of us are going through these things because god gave us a little bit more feelings that are different. You’re going to find it harder to exist.” Even though it took years for my mother to accept my issues she now understands and sees it for how it manifested in almost all my childhood and adolescence.

Another thing I realized is that I can’t apologize to the degree that I love or how I love. I also can’t believe people detach their emotions so easily without recognizing they are. I can’t imagine a life like this.

 I think divine love, spiritual love, honest love, pure love, good love, platonic love, romantic love they are all gifts from God. I can’t believe there are people who don’t believe in love or loving.

Also another thing I had to re-note to myself is that I relate to the X-men a lot, I know, especially when they first realize that there’s something different and they can’t hide it anymore. I think I’m at that first stage of trying to throw those shells of former self away. 

Yeah I’m extra! Life’s too short to be anything else. Well for me. It’s too tragic of a world to be anything else. 

Also forgive yourself every single day and try to do better.

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Honoring the waves

I honor the different waves. I honor my motions. I honor the fire in my soul. I honor it by respecting it.

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//My friend took cool pics of me the other day.

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GOTH GUIDE //Will be fully completed someday//

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Hello! I made a small comic/story about a conversation between a girl and her body. Thanks,

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//Error in ruling//

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//Smol Zine at Fullybooked//

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I’ve been character creating something for a while now for a project of mine. Not the finalized design but one of many doodles I’ve made of this lil’girl with huge mop of blue hair who doesn’t have a body. She floats around. She’s based on the dissociation I’d experience but never have the word for many years ago. She’s occupied w/her own thoughts. She doesn’t have a name.

I do hope to spend more time on her but I currently have to finish up some pieces for an exhibition that will be taking place in May. Not only that I also have to start with the second submission details for .BYTE. I also have family commitments to take care of until then. Need a lot of time for myself to figure out the course of my life. Organizing isn’t my BEST quality but I’m determined to change that a little bit. I used to carry a planner but that just caused so much anxiety. Now I plan to stick to routines for things I need to get done and it’s been okay-ish.  I’m also working on a  story+comic with a friend of mine and it’s in the early stages-it’s really fun so far. Just a lil sneak peak, the character I created for that comic: her name is Sagal Dalmar she’s a really bookish goth girl with horns. 

Anyways I’m feeling a little more anxious than I should about certain things but it’ll be okay, I can do it?! 

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//Ru$h//

1-Patience I had to force myself to learn what Patience means.  I think I would rush things. Rush myself. Rush my craft. Rush my own abilities to comprehend certain behaviors I’ve adopted. Is it to cope-what is it?. Things last longer if you’re patient, I can’t imagine myself believing that a few months ago. My own anxieties would come into full force. Propelling me into this pit of insecurities and just overall mess.  2-Curiosity I’ve always known I’m creative in my own ways and for the first time in many years, the last few months I’ve allowed my child-like curiosity to come out in full force. I sound mad when I talk about some of the things I think about...I know I sound crazy and it probably freaks people out. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can see the colors and the stories floating around. It’s like this painful itch in my hand. When I was doing my intense engineering courses I realized that i had to doodle at least every day to stay sane in a way? It was reflex, I could be sitting doing nothing but from muscle memory I would draw the same face again and again.   I used to take these things a things to heart for a second but now I’ve just started to spit it out real fast. I don’t let it settle in for even a mili second. Who cares. When I realized I don’t care about certain social things I felt a little bit liberated. Self-preservation is key and all but at the end of the day who’s going to sleep at night within this body? Who has to see herself in the mirror? Me. When I said FUCK THAT to all the tiny whispers that contained me in a box for years. They restrict you from understanding your own truth. You can’t even learn or explore your own faith until you cancel out their voices. I’m not 100% in my own truth but I’m okay with whatever it is now. I realized I wouldn’t allow the way people practice their own ways affect my own beliefs. It scares people. It scares people. It scares anyone. It’s scary to have someone comfortable in their own in a way. 3-Spaces Warsan Shire once said  “Light attracts light. But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and energy.” I don’t think I’ll protect as fiercely because sometimes I keep out people who really are great. I just realized I just don’t need allow certain feelings dwell too long. It’s really hard but it takes a while. My space isn’t a physical space it’s around me in sense my own aura...It’s just me and myself. I protect me. I used to think that the space Shire was referring to was a physical one but I think it translates as something else for me. 4-F*ck Mediocrity  I mean it. F*ck it.