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| Mona Kamal, Reflections on Memory (2011) |
A visual artist, whose origins are rooted in the Indian subcontinent, raised in Canada and currently residing in New York, Mona Kamal engages with photography, video, and installation to create contemporary multi-media narratives about migration, journeys, and identities. As she mentions, she creates fictitious exotic spaces that spark a feeling of nostalgia that tell a story of a lost culture due to immigration. These spaces function as both means to conduct dialogue as well as functioning as dialogues about leaving and recreating home.
What inspires you to create: a thought, image, concept or -ism?
The
most basic way of answering this question is that my life inspires me
to create. I get my ideas for my artworks from what surrounds me. A
lot of it is from reading (literature, non-fiction and newspapers)
and the Western perspective of my culture and religion. I feel that I
often get ideas for my work based on responses/judgments that I
receive in America about identifying myself as a Muslim Pakistani
woman. My parents’ history additionally also has been a great
inspiration as they, like most Muslims, were greatly affected by the
partition of India in 1947 as not only was their country
divided...but their family was also split between two countries.
My
inspiration most recently comes from the rise of Islamism in South
Asia and particularly Pakistan. I feel my art is a voice of
resistance against religious fundamentalism and western stereotypes
of Islam and South Asian culture and therefore, a manner in which I
can preserve a specific history and culture.
You
have worked in a variety of media such as installation art and video
projects. What compels and attracts you towards each? Do the subject
and content of your work influence your decision as to which
particular medium you will use?
I remember
when I was doing my BFA at NSCAD in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a graduate
student told me that once you are confident in your practice and the
concepts behind your work, you will feel comfortable about working in
different media. I always felt that was a very strong statement: I do
feel that an artist should work in different mediums depending on the
meaning they are attempting to convey.
Both my video
projects and installations are process based so that definitely has
compelled me towards both mediums. I find video a unique medium
because it captures movement whereas within my installations I am
creating a space for the viewer to move about in.
Furthermore,
my videos have a performative aspect and many times I am in the
videos whereas my installations allow me to play with materials and
construct structures. I am telling a story within both, creating
spaces that are both physical as well as allowing for a dialogue
about identity and migration.
Hot Mess Series, 2012 from mona kamal on Vimeo.
Gender
and race are both very significant components of my personal and
artistic life (I don’t think my artistic and personal lives are
separate).
I
have mostly recently gained an interest in feminist writing written
by women of colour; these readings have demonstrated the challenges
that the 70s feminist movement faced due to their difficulties in
perceiving the perspectives of women from the developing world and
even visible women minorities in the West.
