Closing Program: A thought is a memory
In partnership with the New York Arab Festival
Organized by Kamelya Omayma Youssef
Food by Red Flower Collective
Participants: George Abraham (remote participation), Bazeed, Tsohil Bhatia, Rawya El Chab, Nadia Khayrallah, Noel Maghathe, and Tenaya Nasser-Frederick
In celebration of the final day of the exhibition, curated by Noel Maghathe, mentored by Sara Raza, and featuring artists Zeinab Saab, Kiki Salem, Nailah Taman, Zeina Zeitoun.
Date: Saturday, May 13, 2023
Time: 1:00 – 5:00 pm (1-3 pm performances, 3-5 pm reception)
Please join CUE Art Foundation and the New York Arab Festival for an afternoon of programming organized by Kamelya Omayma Youssef to celebrate the closing of الفكرة ذكرى / A thought is a memory. The event will bring together New York City-based artists and writers from "the so-called Arab world" to share works in poetry, theater, dance, performance art, and the blur between these practices. Participants include: George Abraham (remote participation), Bazeed, Tsohil Bhatia, Rawya El Chab, Nadia Khayrallah, Noel Maghathe, and Tenaya Nasser-Frederick.
Readings and performances are presented in conversation with the exhibition, and participants will share their own works in alignment and discord with the questions it poses. Together, we wonder: what are the sonic, poetic, embodied landscapes of collective memory and thought? What imaginaries emerge from within and across these imagined borders, bodies, heres, and elsewheres?
During the program, we will be joined by the exhibition curator, Noel Maghathe (who is also one of the program participants) as well as exhibiting artists Zeinab Saab, Kiki Salem, Nailah Taman, and Zeina Zeitoun. We invite guests to stay for a reception following the program to celebrate their work.
All are welcome to join for the closing program. Food and refreshments by Red Flower Collective will be served during the reception. CUE’s gallery space is wheelchair accessible. RSVPs are requested but not required. To RSVP, see here.
About the Participants:
George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and a recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, The Arab American National Museum, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, National Performance Network, and more. They are currently co-editing a Palestinian global anglophone poetry anthology with Noor Hindi (Haymarket Books, 2024) and are a Litowitz MFA+MA student at Northwestern University.
Bazeed is a multi–award winning Egyptian immigrant, writer, performer, stage actor, curator, and cook living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres has been published in print and online, and their plays have been performed on both sides of the Atlantic. To procrastinate from facing the blank page, Bazeed runs an occasional salon/open mic series, and is a slow student of Arabic music.
Tsohil Bhatia is an artist and homemaker based in Lenapehoking. They work with their body and its ghost to develop performative inquiries of their surroundings and make contemplative interventions in their everyday. They received an MFA at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University (2020) and their work has been shown at Queer Arts Festival, Franconia Sculpture Park, Andy Warhol Museum, University of British Columbia, and HH Art Spaces, amongst others. They co-founded Red Flower Collective, a food research and communal eating collective based in NY; an extension of their studio practice into the kitchen.
Rawya El Chab is a Brooklyn-based theatermaker from Lebanon. Her career trajectory combines training and experience in classical theatre, contemporary art performance, and community engagement. Her work emphasizes the development of ludic practices and the democratization of the tools of theater as a means to dismantle modes of oppression. She is a performer with Targin Margin Theater and has been featured at theater festivals internationally, including Rattlestick Theatre as part of the Global Forms Festival in 2021 and the Exponential Experimental Theater Festival in 2022-2023. She is currently developing Lula 19/85, an experimental multidisciplinary piece exploring political martyrdom in the future. The piece explores the inevitable environmental crises of our planet and raises questions about what remains of our discourse for future generations. Rawya meddles with the supernatural and the occult. On bad days, she makes a bread loaf and shares it with others.
Nadia Khayrallah is a Lebanese-American dance artist, writer, and (dis)content creator rooted in history and fantasy, form and groove, esoterica, and common sense. They currently perform with Jonah Bokaer and Gotham Dance Theater, serve as a teaching artist in public schools, write for thINKingDANCE, and create their own work.
Noel Maghathe is a queer, mixed Palestinian-American artist and curator with a deep connection to their Palestinian heritage. Their work explores personal identity through queer tools, while also drawing on their own experiences navigating the intersections of queerness and Palestinian identity. They have curated various exhibitions, including A thought is a memory at CUE Art Foundation, and exhibited at spaces such as the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. Maghathe values connecting with other Palestinian and Arab artists, and continues to create work in their Cincinnati studio.
Tenaya Nasser-Frederick is a fringing fringe, most recently the author of Lavender Cats (1080 Press, 2020).
About the Organizer:
Kamelya Omayma Youssef is the author of A book with a hole in it (Wendy's Subway, 2022). Her work has been published with 1080 Press, Mizna, AAWW’s The Margins, and the Michigan Quarterly Review, among others. Her work has also been exhibited in gallery spaces and on the theater stage. She currently adjuncts at City College, edits books at Everybody Press, and organizes workshops and events with her friends.
About the New York Arab Festival
New York Arab Festival (NYAF) fights the erasure of Arab and Arab American identity in the city of New York through the celebration of Arab art, culture, and heritage. NYAF was founded by Arab, American, and Arab American artists, creators, and policymakers in New York to address cultural erasure, urban inequality, and artistic injustice. Its inaugural edition was launched in April 2022, honoring the month of Ramadan and the Biden administration’s recognition of National Arab American Heritage Month. NYAF presents artists from diverse backgrounds, showcasing the intersectionality of the Arab identity across myriad cultural backgrounds including African, Asian, Jewish, Mediterranean, Muslim, and others.
NYAF 2023 is presented by HaRaKa Platform and Wizara. The festival was founded by Arab, Arab American and American artists, curators and cultural operators, namely, artistic director and curator Adham Hafez, urbanist Adam Kucharski, senior producer Cindy Sibilsky, and cultural manager Marwa Seoudi. NYAF is made possible with funds from the Howard Gilman Foundation, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and additional support from partnerships and supporters. www.newyorkarabfestival.com
About Red Flower Collective
Red Flower Collective is a project, practice, and expanded view of the kitchen and the studio founded by art historian and researcher Erin Montanez and artist and homemaker Tsohil Bhatia. The goal is to collaborate with artists-/chefs-/and curiosities-in-residence, and to affirm queer and diasporic identities as they manifest themselves through food. Working through the model of the autonomous home gallery and making it function to its full capacity of hosting, feeding, and sharing, the collective explores the kitchen as a forum in which to receive generational knowledge and prioritize the recipes derived from this research.