About this Event
About the book:
Aisha is Yemeni Egyptian American photographer and filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi’s first artist’s book. This powerful, delicate publication, inspired by Al-Arashi’s great-grandmother, Aisha, is an homage to the lineage of women that she descends from; women of the multidimensional and many-layered landscapes of the MENA region. Searching for an understanding of the tattoos that graced her great-grandmother’s body, Al-Arashi embraces the complexities of a symbolic matriarchal tradition. Unable to visit one of her places of origin, the war-stricken Yemen, Yumna traveled through Northern Africa meeting and photographing a diverse group of women belonging more or less to the same generation: all standing, sitting, looking, moving and laughing with assuredness and joy. By refusing the violence of selection and definition surrounding women’s practices, Al-Arashi publishes every single photograph from her journey in this 392 page monograph, moving the work into an ethereal cinematic celebration.
Al-Arashi’s images are gentle yet strong in composition, conscientiously connecting the woman to the land surrounding her and vice versa; they are incredibly rich in detail and color; and they are intimate, beautifully defiant and full of community and alliance. Aisha also includes Al-Arashi’s writing and poetry in which she reflects on memories of her great-grandmother and the scent of oudh “that left a trail of magic wherever she floated in that home.” In her genre-stretching texts, Al-Arashi also speaks on colonial archives, intergenerational storytelling and on the complexities of transnational female identity in patriarchal, capitalist, and imperialist societies at-large.
About the author:
Yumna Al-Arashi is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose workstraddles the intersection of history, identity, and power.Through striking visual compositions, her work reclaims lostnarratives, challenges colonial legacies, and redefines therepresentation of women, the Arab world, and the environmentwith an unflinching, poetic gaze. Her imagery—steeped inmyth, memory, and resistance—invokes a sense oftimelessness, drawing from centuries-old traditions whilespeaking urgently to contemporary struggles. Through her lens,beauty becomes an act of defiance, and storytelling a form ofreclamation.
The conversation will be moderated by Farrah Skeiky.
Farrah Skeiky is an Arab American photographer and creative director based in Washington, DC. Her work is representative of the DC area itself: a confluence of culture and counter-culture with a focus on heritage, identity, and community. She collaborates with artists, artisans, and organizers to tell thoughtful and striking visual stories.
Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with questions.
Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar [email protected] con cualquiera duda.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Lost City Books, 2467 18th Street Northwest, Washington, United States
USD 0.00
