Samboosa Study is an ode to my memories of samboosa, particularly the samboosa shop that stood in the middle of my mother’s favorite fabric market. As a child I would accompany her on her trips to Blockaat, where I would spend hours watching her bargain and study. In the midst of scavenging through the market, we would stop and reboot at the samboosa shop. That was the only way we could complete our routine round of the market.
Samboosa is a small, triangular pastry made with delicate filo dough. In the piece, I emulated the technique used when wrapping the dough to wrap fabric in the shape of samboosa. I made several of these using fabric that came from Blockaat, and fixated them throughout the frame using transparent string to create a nostalgic, dream-like mood. I chose florals because that is what my mother would use to make her dara3a’s, traditional Kuwaiti dresses. I also incorporated the bag that the fabric came in, manipulating it with painted red text that reads ‘thank you’ repeatedly, like typical food bags do, to unite the experience of going to the fabric market with the experience of buying samboosa.
