Translation: There are wonds that dont show on the body, but they are much more deeper and painful more than any bleeding.

Hijacking, 2023

Performance, Digital illustration using iPad and screenprint on Fabrik

This project takes the form of a performance centered around a reimagined version of the ISIS flag a digital illustration I created and screenprinted onto fabric, stripped of its destructive power and recontextualized. Through movement and dance, I use my body as a medium to confront and process the trauma of having lived under ISIS rule in Raqqa as a queer person. The flag, a potent symbol of ISIS’s visual identity, becomes a site of resistance. In this work, I aim to expose the contradictions within ISIS’s hypermasculine narrative by highlighting the hidden queer practices that some of its members engaged in during their occupation of my hometown.

Redesigned “hijacked” ISIS flag. Arabic text reads: God loves sissies

Orginal ISIS flag. Arabic text reads: Theres no god but Allah