2024, A Year of Gain
And a few reminders from 2023.
The last newsletter I named The Year of Loss, however to gain anything in this life, you must loose something. I’m pretty sure that’s paraphrasing Newton’s 3rd Law. A few weeks ago I was unsure I’d write any kind of a (public) review of this year around it’s development and learnings as it’s had it’s, erm, let’s say less than ideal moments. Yes the last substack could be seen as some kind of review in itself, but maybe for my own comfort, or vindication (strong word), a part of me wanted to write it out, things which are good, learnt, less than ideal but necessary and happened. Without a rose tint, just as life was and now is. As always, this hasn’t been proofread so, enjoy.
I can’t deny, there’s been some beautiful, grounding, regenerative and oh God, generally incredible moments amongst the year that ushered on and especially in the month of December. Even if in reality these moments were overshadowed by some gut wrenching, the silver linings gave me a few reasons to persevere. This year saw me go back to school to do my MFA, meet a whole host of new people and subsequently friends, wear high heels regularly again, expand my painting practice, annoy an art agent, finally make sculptures I’d been dreaming of, set my best rowing time, set my best form for deadlifts, go on a few runs, My hair is finally healthy again. My body is the strongest and fastest it’s been in its entire life, cook red meat once during the summer (and that was maybe enough), developed a school crush which I will do nothing about (proximity crush most likely), and really, fully enjoy re-embracing my slightly (deeply) wicked side. It’s good to feel home in my skin and bed once again. Life is moving. I’m a year older, a year richer. This year was not the easiest, but I’m alive. I live a privileged life.
I remember the first week of this year, organising amongst my friends when to meet for protests, to catch up, travel plans, career and education moves, our relationships, family going-ons, health, everything. I was in the biggest rush for so much of this year, telling myself I had to be in certain places the day before yesterday, almost like I felt I was missing something. I only actually started slowing down around mid October. December would arrive and finally I would gather the strength to put an end of a few things. Those things varying from internal voices around work and identity to external relationships of different kinds. Through reading and research for my own practice, supportive peers and friends at school, I finally felt validation in who I was after these many years. I had always had a darker, intense side. What a privilege to be gifted the ability to maintain and yield such an intense and powerful inner world. I really can say, this month, I remembered who I was, how I loved to dress, present myself and how I felt naturally inclined to express myself. All only happening when I finally gave myself the chance to.
The 6th day of January will possibly live forever as the day which a weeks events unfolded. I would get my first commission of the year, go to a protest and witness more police brutality than I had ever seen, while my friend Ilyana who was visiting from Amsterdam and I ran into Westminster Underground station to avoid getting caught up in the kettling of majority of the attending protesters. Later, I’d take myself to the Sainsbury’s in New Cross Gate - something everyday, routine and normal, familiar and a reminder of South London being my home, only to try to ground my shaking body down. I’d then come home to book flights to Tokyo, something I’d decided on a bit of a whim over 2 weeks but whenever I say I’ll do something, well, I generally go ahead and do it. Japan, a country which had been on my mind for the best part of my life, finally turning into a reality; only then to receive less than joyous news about my parents in maybe the worst possible way. The 6th January was the day I realised this year would not let up from its predecessor. She would be another testing ground, a good year for growth (for fucks sake). And with all growth, eventually we get to smell the flowers which we have for so long waited to witness their bloom. The flowers however, look different, and are handed to me by different pair of hands than I originally prayed for. Flowers nonetheless. Not better or worse. Just different. I’m not yet sure what the silver lining is just yet.
I’m at my best when I’m there for my friends and those who need me. This year has seen me separate from a few of my closest; possibly only temporarily, I’ve not decided anything yet while I give myself distance and space to pause. I feel the necessity of stepping away more for myself and I can’t call myself a failure here, just I have been reassured a few times too many our futures are not decided, separations happen, life goes on regardless. I know if I made a decision today, I would regret it later on. Just as I would regret saying something in the heat of a moment, only for years to unfold, and the stab of my words be the lasting words amongst every other memory which was so much more tender. I choose the remember the good parts, even though I myself can’t forget some of the words said with little care, or a scent temporarily borrowed. I hate some of those words.
To caveat this, 2024 has also been the year where I gained a ton of new people in my life and creative bravery in every sense of the word. With less than 2 weeks left of the year, on the fifth day of my school holidays, I’m missing my friends who I got to make vivld bloody red paintings around, sit on each other’s floors discussing life, astrology, God, Queens and art, whom witnessed my heartbreak, only to hold and stitch pieces of me up again with added metal, giving me strength to really step out as the woman I should have been all along. The blood red paintings, the paintings which you could step into. A world which I’d always wanted to make, ‘A Red Forest’, all being ushered on by my peers and more so, by my own intuition that this is the only art I should make at this moment. There was never anything wrong with wanting or needing to make intense, strong work which aims to wake people up. There was never anything wrong with the discourse of decolonising one’s art practice as she started to read more into Asian myths around womanhood. Reading about Inanna and Izanami while subsequently watching Kill Bill and the Matrix has reminded me of the 5 year old I once was, wishing to be a Power Ranger and not the pink one (the yellow one). I remember the photos of my ancestors holding guns while wrapped in white cotton muslin saris in the streets of Dhaka in 1971. There was never anything wrong with the vision I had for myself as an artist or a woman. I am the daughter of these daughters.
It doesn’t surprise me my practice takes on the role to mobilise women when I myself long to care and provide for those around me. I see it as a privilege to be able to make these paintings which I’ve described as portals into other realms. The least I can do is let my works initiate other women to realise their own innate power, that rage, anger, desire, are all valid human things, especially in this day in age where women’s rights across the world are being stripped away or withheld. From ruthless and unjustifiable murders of Palestinian women and girls, to abortion bans across the US in aims to control the growth, reach and education of girls and women. Women aren’t safe when we’re outside or even in many cases inside our own homes. I’m making this work for women everywhere. We need each other to come together, and move. In the words of Amir Sulaiman, you will be someone’s ancestor. Act accordingly.
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For artists feeling the strain of the world.
30th May 2024.
This is our vocation, the calling and the communication. We make things, we tell the story, not always our own but what our souls witness. Remember to bear witness. We share the moment, share the bread. Never forget, we record the unseen, the most felt, the unspoken hymns between other’s eyes and lingering on foreign lips. We take the photograph, we make the quiet parts heard, spoken, out loud, all of it. Every ounce of joy to every bit of grief, from the shallowest ponds to the deepest seas. This is the time when we get to work. Put action behind the story, go outside, witness everything, bare witness, march alongside others, tell the stories, get angry, let this change you, let it push you and alchemise this moment into something new.
I have to live by my words.
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I’m thankful for gallery trips, peers helping me photograph large works, the wall space I have to make work, tutors backing and being excited by my practice, for the room quietening (occasionally) when I pray, for Sufi groups and medicine women who have guided me this year and no doubt will continue to be my teachers early next year, for countless biscuits and cakes in the studio, for being given people to cook for, for photos of people’s pets, for meals with friends, meals with my brother, to dance with friends, to finally hug some people, the privilege of being able to go back to school, to be commissioned to paint, to sell work, to feed myself large quantities of rice, to eat my mum’s cooking, to cuddle my nephews, to enjoy reading again, to finally accept and own my natal chart is heavily Pluto (Scorpio) dominant (the most aspected and trickiest placement in my natal chart) - something I’ve been so private about possibly out of fear, however once you accept the self, so many parts of yourself become clear. I had the privilege to learn more about Sufism, to be gifted the ability to pray 5 times a day. My mother, my Nanu, friends, close family and even those whom I’m separated from at this current moment, you’ve all in different ways helped build parts of me this year and that’s quite beautiful. That’s what I want to go into the next year with.
We witnessed the world open their eyes and double down on matters with the Middle East/Africa, ie Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Congo, and so on. The collective is waking up to their own humility. Elon Musk is finally being seen for who he is (I never liked the guy and marginally got the ick from anyone who really rated him), America is getting fed up of their taxes being exported out for war - I guess the glimmer of neoliberalism is finally failing. More and more women are pulling together to get their rights back, aiming to build sustainable futures together and for each other. I’m making work built to engage women. Work which is violent, work which is meant to validate the inner depths and rage of women. Rage isn’t a bad thing. Like all emotions and actions, it’s about intention and I don’t think God intended for me to pack myself away into a corner.
Here’s a few more compact sentences on life parts learnt, remembered and witnessed this year:
Make things without the anticipation of other’s perceptions. Everyone has their own relationship with everything which exists because everyone is unique with themselves and their experiences. The more insecure or less steady will project, in fact we all do from time to time. Give yourself grace. Ignore the noise. Be generous with yourself. Make things.
Ask yourself if this current part of your practice, life, relationship sustainable? How long can you bask in something with little to no challenge or something or someone who you can’t feel grab at your chest where maybe there was a lacking in a pull at your chest in the first place. Be honest about it. Are you the kind of person who needs to persuade yourself to stay in a situation all knowing this situation was not meant for the long haul. How far can you push each other? What can you learn? It’s all good and well having a practice which you feel ease in. However, (when) will you get bored and will it be far too often? Did you settle before you admitted what had to be done or knew was missing for the long run? There has to be a mutual drive to grow, nurture and keep moving towards the next. Be honest with yourself, where is this going? Is this a safety net? No one enjoys the safety net, settled with the right person, work and environment, but not a premature safety net. Least of all you. So get the fuck out and on.
People who will never do what you’re capable or have the guts of doing will always advise you on the shit they’re too scared to do themselves. Ignore them. Trust yourself. Fuck everyone else.
Make the red paintings. Just carry on making them. Make them like your heart depends on them, because to some capacity it does.
It’s really okay to love action films. You’re one hot (incredible) human. You don’t have to explain yourself either. You’ll be fetishised regardless.
Trust the plan. We don’t know what it is, but your soul will always whisper the truth to you. You always knew the truth to some degree because time doesn’t exist, so everything is happening right now.
Lucid dreaming is bizarre. Even more bizarre when the veil between dreams and reality is removed.
Japan is a spiritual home. You remembered how you body loves to be fed and where it loves to explore when you visited here. You’ll be back again before you know it.
A repeat, because you have to never forget. It is a massive privilege to be gifted with the ability to harness and utilise such intensity. So many won’t or can’t look at the same bull in the eye as you can.
You will love again. You always have. The young are born to love again always and the old are too wise to deny themselves.
Your connection to God won’t always feel like something is happening. When is doubt, Ad-Duha. Even when nothing is happening in front on you, remember, you can’t see everything. That’s done on purpose.
Your indecision is in itself a decision.
You do not have to decide today, although ask yourself would you rather have the decision made for you? No? Then stop avoiding the task and make the effort.
Have the difficult conversation. It’s the only way you grow.
You carried on making work true to you, alhamdulillah. Carry on.
A reminder from last year’s review in relation to staying politically active and outspoken: Who am I to stay quiet when I’ve been afforded the privilege of ‘waking up secure in their property, healthy in their body, and they have food for the day, it is as if they were given the entire world.’ - quoting Hadith (replacing ‘he’ with ‘they’) from our beloved Messenger ﷺ,
2025’s astrology is whack. Buckle in. You will change your mind about things, everyone will be changing their mind about things. Be ready to forgive someone.
It’s okay to be angry, especially today. My God, I wish we were more angry and utilised our rage more often. The world is falling apart (it’s been falling apart for a while). Mobilise, keep protesting, put some action behind your words, dream of a better tomorrow. But remember, it’s okay to be angry. The world is so shit right now.
Don’t say the thing which will hurt them even though you think it’s the truth or maybe they need a dose of this reality. Do you think this unveiling on this truth is necessary? Will it positively impact both of you? As the saying goes, Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Will you regret your words one day? If so, stay kind, and keep it moving. Forgive yourself. And remember, life will always circle back around.
Your health, situation, education, wealth, family and relations are a privilege and a responsibility.
There’s days I wonder if I’m missing out on something by not participating in drinking and I (and others) remind myself I’m far more productive and healthier without it. And secondly, this world is not one to escape from. There are many things to enjoy in this reality, however the taste of wine will taste better in the next life. There will be no amount of intoxicants which will make this life taste better than it is designed to be. I remind myself further, my body has rights over me.
Don’t give a fuck about things which do not need your attention.
Sometimes you don’t gain the thing you thought you’d gain from giving your power away. Sometimes keeping and embodying your power is exactly what gets you somewhere. That being said, we give up things for people or pursuits we love. Almost in a similar way to how we give up traits or time as a form of worship towards God. Both sacrifices rooted in love, so therefore God is synonymous with love. However we shouldn’t be worshiping anything other than God so hold onto everything when engaging with others. If the love’s there, then you’ll never be asked to compromise our core or be made to feel you should shrink who you are. When we love others, we hold space and we let them be free. That, or they’re too scared of loosing you.
I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, but, I do feel like I’ve learnt a little more what my purpose on this planet and in this realm is. I believe ever so slightly when we were asked 77 times before we were born if we wanted to do this experience called the human life, that we saw something not only in the Heavens which we were shown, but also things in our day to day here. Maybe it was something we made, a smile we witnessed, some love from our partner(s), a field of flowers, the liberation of countries, or just living on the water. I remind myself every moment is always divinely timed. When life decides to weave two threads together, I figure everyone will have grown, released and realised parts of themselves, better equipped and ready to engage and nurture another relationship wearing slightly weathered skin. Maybe this year was a year of loss, but like everything, there’s a reason, which ultimately lends itself to openings for newer gains. Next year I pray and in reality, I already know the skies tomorrow will be bluer.
Seasons greetings and Happy New Year. Salaam and until next year. X
