Nesreen Galal

A time pre-civil war

A time when I had my parakeets in Kuwait: Sinson and Toti

A time when I see used to see my grandparents every year

A time when my dad was still alive

A time when my grandma was still alive

A time when I used to see the beautiful scenery in Sharm El Sheik — شرم الشيخ

A time when I used to navigate through my grandparents’ neighbourhood Dummar — دُمَّر

A time when I used to wait to eat my grandma’s food 

……

What a time.

Glimpses of Egypt, Syria and Kuwait was done for my independent study, experimenting with risoprinting, I wanted to try out stop-motion with the process of printmaking. Printed as dual-tone images; in pink and blue, in blue and red, in red and yellow, in yellow and pink; these shots were taken when I was a kid. I wanted to re-use my old footage of when my love for art started, when I received a digital camera on my tenth birthday. I found my camera not long ago. This project is a gift to my younger self. Following the situation occurring in Gaza, I was inspired by the collective memories of my upbringing.

Arab people living in Canada, far away from their families and pets, get nostalgic for the sceneries from our countries: such as the beaches in the Arabian gulf and the Red Sea. Some collective food memory, like “el sufra” which means the dining table, are a huge deal in the Arab community, as it is a time to sit down and spend it with our family especially during Ramadan. I added two sequences about it as I found it fascinating that the word Sufra comes from the Semitic root “s-f-r,” associated with sweeping motions and with journeys (also giving rise to the word borrowed into English as safari). According to E. W. Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, the basic meaning of the word was 'food that is prepared for the traveler ... or for a journey.' This resonated with me as someone nostalgic for the countries I have lived in and try to go back to often. I feel like I am a traveler and a tourist in my own countries, as I never lived in Egypt and Syria, but my parents are from there, and I lived in Kuwait but never felt Kuwaiti enough. I always say I look Syrian, but I don’t speak like one, and I sound Egyptian, but I don’t look like one. I use art to navigate my identity and find my place.