Three sheets of printmaking paper stand at twenty feet tall. Using both the front and back of each sheet, six different portrayals exist. Awaiting Arrival invites the viewer into six different works that explore the idea of home. Home is a place and home is a time. But above all home is a feeling of belonging and the interweaving of memories, both real and imaged.
Awaiting Arrival speaks to the experience that a displaced individual may have. Displaced by migration, by time, or by the nature of memory. Home is what one always goes back to. Awaiting Arrival is about where you hope to arrive and the reality of what is there.
Awaiting arrival depicts six different places that are perceived to be the foundation of who I am. New York, 12 years, the state I was born in and my childhood home. Florida, 16 years, where I lived as a teenager until my fifth year of teaching. Oklahoma, one and a half years, where I have most recently moved to. Home as a memory of a location. Home as the magnet for fragmented memories.
The alternate sides of these works are the dual part of my identity as a Pakistani. The Mughal past is depicted, Pakistan in the present day, and the future of what Pakistan may be like. Home as a period of time. Home as a fleeting or impending dream.
One day, home is a story that you share. A stage that you’ve built for others to dance on. A daydream of a passageway. Passageway that hangs from the ceiling to the floor.
