By Simon Albaugh \u2013 Yemeni American News<\/p>\n
Dearborn, Mich. – Renowned artist Alia Ali remembers the windows to the moon of her native Yemen. The Qamariya, which illuminate the color through stained crescent shapes, left their mark on Ali. \u201cThey\u2019re so magical, they\u2019re so beautiful,\u201d Ali said. In Yemen, as well as in other countries that were influenced by the architecture of Ancient Yemen, the Qamariya adorned houses, shining light into a colorful pattern within the home.<\/p>\n
In the art of Yemeni Futurist Alia Ali, she\u2019s working to draw on the rich history and culture that she lived as a part of until she was 13 years old. Some of the smallest details, like the Qamariya, influence her decisions in what she presents to some of the largest private collectors and most renowned museums in Europe. But rather than serving as a documenter and archivist of Yemeni culture, she\u2019s working to distill the ideas of Yemen into their next aesthetic iteration, while never shying away from celebrating their roots.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we disassemble some of the ideas and then put them back together and make something else out of it and use it as inspiration?\u201d Ali said. \u201c\u2026You can say that I\u2019m pointing back to the source and insisting, you know, showing and demonstrating that it\u2019s Yemeni.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cNavigating so much in five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating from University, Ali found herself working as the Director of Operations for the Marrakech Biennial \u2013 a reoccurring arts festival in Morocco that focuses on the cutting edge in contemporary art, literature and film. In it, she was tasked with executing others\u2019 ideas. In this position, Ali soon realized that she was not being valued for her role as an independent creative herself, with the director of the biennial telling her: \u201cyour job is not to bring ideas. It is to execute [the artist\u2019s].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, you know, I just sort of sucked it up,\u201d Ali said. \u201cAnd I did it. And I just kept finding myself within certain structures that didn’t fit me. Whether it’s the US legal system, whether it’s language barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali recounts the time when a mentor asked if she was motivated by money or happiness. And indeed, Ali had all the tools she needed to possibly become rich in the art world. In the end, she decided that wasn\u2019t what motivated her, and pursued a Master of Fine Arts degree.<\/p>\n
Five years later, her work has been displayed in museums across the United States and Europe, with her famed photography portraits selling for well over $10,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I had a meeting and they said \u2018How did you navigate so much in five years?\u2019 And I said \u2018you know, what you don\u2019t want to hear is that I now speak fluently four languages, and I function in six. The only reason that happens is because I had to learn your language in order for you to see me. I\u2019ve used my life to orient around you to reach you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Alia Ali is an artist renowned for her work in Yemeni Futurism. In 2021, it was announced that Ali is one of only 20 other artists who\u2019ve been named Artsy Vanguard artists.<\/p>\n
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Art for us first<\/p>\n
Ali espouses the idea of the infrathin \u2013 \u201cthe moment in which something stops being one thing and starts becoming something else.\u201d As someone who has been defined by binaries of identity such as Eastern and Western, Immigrant and Native, victim and perpetrator, she instead chooses to reject these binaries in favor of the space that\u2019s in between.<\/p>\n
For Alia, these binaries have had a real impact on how she navigated life. Growing up in Yemen to a Bosnian Muslim mother and a Yemeni Jewish Father, she first became aware of what\u2019s viewed as the extremes of the human experience. Now that she\u2019s looking at the Yemen conflict from the perspective of the diaspora, she can see how these extremes have victimized Yemenis.<\/p>\n
Once, she brought her father to a gallery show in Paris. Initially, security wouldn\u2019t even let her father in because of the way he was dressed. When a famed collector wanted to purchase her art, Alia said he interrupted her father\u2019s question. \u201cAnd I refused the sale,\u201d Alia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of people in the diaspora who get quite embarrassed of their parents or embarrassed of how things are done, because they\u2019re dictated as primitive or as not classy or whatever,\u201d Ali said. \u201cAnd I think that there\u2019s a power to make the space and carve out the space and so \u2018No, actually, the intention of the work is for us first. And if anybody else wants it, then they have to do the labor to orient around us…\u2019 That\u2019s what my work is about.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Al-Falaq at the Arab American National Museum<\/p>\n
Alia Ali earned a commission for a massive installation in the Arab American National Museum. Called al-Falaq, it draws on ancient myth in order to connect Yemen\u2019s suffering with the Western institutions that are perpetuating the violence. The sculpture itself is 98 feet in length, taking up the air of the interior with 81 screens displaying stolen Yemeni artifacts.<\/p>\n
Because of the conflict in Yemen, the world is at risk of losing one of its oldest, richest histories. Yemeni people in Alia\u2019s life are already at risk of forgetting that history, like one arts journalist she developed a friendship with. With these two purposes in mind, al-Falaq, a multimedia sculpture in the atrium of the Arab American National Museum creates a monument to Yemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, I wanted to take back all that was ours, and leave this earth because we\u2019ve been pushed out and I wanted it also to be a statement for the world or for people to see what is at stake and what they have rejected. And it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spending half of her upbringing in the United States, away from the conflict that developed, she often wonders about what this means for herself, asking the question: \u201cwhat does it mean as a Yemeni to be from two places, one that actually survived off of the destruction of the other?\u201d Ali said.<\/p>\n
As an artist, she\u2019s been working through this question in order to point back to the source, insist, show and demonstrate that certain beautiful things in the world are, in fact, uniquely Yemeni. But more than that, Ali is trying to establish a community around the future of Yemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s become more of an important thing for me, rather than archiving, is to make the community,\u201d Ali said. \u201cBecause in order to create a future, you have to have a community\u2026 This is also a calling for other Yemeni creatives and thinkers. To say \u2018where are you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n