Alia Farid '08
Profile
By making an analogy between the artist and the itinerant migrant worker I'm attempting to describe the intricate human processes involved in (im)migration, adaptation, and transformation. The negotiation of territory is a crucial aspect of my work, as it's determinant of the different levels in class, culture, and commerce. My interest in a research based art practice lies in the types of social disconnect; within gaps that keep us apart or within the uncertainty that begs us to delineate our surroundings: the individual, the cohort, the city, and even experience itself. How do the various combinations of use around space (actions, interactions, and transactions) characterize the overall environment? What do people want out of a secured space? And finally, how does the treatment of space inform us about a relationship to? There has been plenty of literature written about displacement, diasporic communities, and defensive neighborhoods... yet I am interested in apprehending something else. How is it that one's [current] affinity to space be [infinitely] affected by the past? And in which ways is it threatened by the future?
Keywords: the global/neoliberal city, the informal economy, (im)migration, assimilation, hybridity, distinction, rupture, subculture, commemoration, (mis)representation, language/lyric and sound.
