By Your Side

Digital Media Video created in the artist's childhood home. Featuring archival analog footage from 1950-52's and archival audio recording from estimated 1980s of spoken prayer and song, in Arabic, by the artist's late uncle and grandfather. This work is made to highlight the roots and nostalgia of Lebanese American culture within modern America. It features the artist's relationship between the aesthetic home and coming to terms with Lebanese heritage within a contemporary American home. The fragmentation created by the effects of the projection on the mirror is used to show the separation of the family from the home and how a normal space can become fragmented by those existing there.


The work is made through projection being bounced off mirrors to create fragmentation in the image and cracks in the projected video. The lightning flash in the digital video creates a thunder sound effect heard openly while viewing the piece, while internal audio is installed separately through a small 2000's style mp3 player directed through the headset. This separation establishes a differentiation between the external home and the internal. The work changes based on the space it is installed in, thusly the projection is cracked differently according to the space in which it exists. Much like our homes and the families living there.


This piece first premiered at Zhou B Arts Center in Chicago, IL in May 2019