Taken by my father in Nuwaiseeb, Kuwait 1989.

I grew up in a library, monitoring the interiority of the household. Palm leaves screeching against the windows, that was the sound of our house. My childhood is located on a cliff of sedimentary rocks sculpted by the tides of the sea. My childhood is also located in my grandparents’ basement, our shelter during the Gulf War.

I live in Kuwait, a country situated between the sea and the desert. It was a resting place for bedouins, seafarers, poets and migratory birds. My father was ten when the old city was demolished, and I was six when Iraq invaded Kuwait. These two collective traumas caused feelings of nostalgia and fear within the communities living in Kuwait. These emotional, political and urban forces led me to look into modes of decay and destruction in the city and its people.

The transiency of where I live gives me a sense of urgency to narrate and document where I stand from my immediate surroundings: my room, family, familiar faces, landscapes and the local flora. I am attentive to the common words we use, and fascinated by anything that meets the ground whether it’s a rock, shell, carpet, tile, tire, foot or a plant.