The prompt that inspired the making of the zine:
It’s not really a physical space that I’m in right now, but rather a mental one. A space that’s always present regardless where you are and where you go. It almost imprisons itself within you. Sometimes the place can be rewarding, and sometimes it can be haunting. Regardless, it’s always been there. I maybe started acknowledging its existence at around my teen years, or it may have gotten heavier to walk around with that my younger self couldn’t ignore it any longer. However, I was quite oblivious to the capacity this space took up in my existence.
Liminality; just recently got introduced to the term but I’m not foreigner to its implications. Regardless where the world took me, I felt like I belong somewhere else. It’s like my soul craves something that’s not quite there, and truly it’s difficult to fulfil such a craving. It’s almost like a cycle of being someone else, being somewhere else, and feeling something else. Yet, no matter how familiar you are with it, you’re still not able to escape it.
You’re not quite alone, you’re with the multiple different versions of yourself that you accumulated over the past. Some of them frighten you, some of them excite you, some of them shock you. Regardless, none of them really feel like you. You’re all just sitting there trying to find the perfect recipe to break away from this curse, surrounded by all the places you roamed around together. They feel a little more bitter than you remember though, almost cold.
It’s a lot, and it’s not entirely tangible. Yes; our eyes have seen a great deal, our ears have heard plenty, our mouths have tasted many, but once we’re back to our space everything feels a little different to us. To sum up, we’re just too foreign to call a place home.
The Camouflage Pattern:
My camouflage pattern is inspired by my inability to locate where I feel most at home. Coming from a family of exiled Palestinians that sought refuge in Jordan, I fail to fit in with Palestinians. Growing up in Jordan, I failed to fit in with Jordanians. The shapes of the pattern come from the Czech-made mlok (salamander) camouflage pattern worn during the Black September, a conflict that arose between Palestinians and Jordanians. The choice of this pattern highlights the conflict that arises between my Palestinian side and my Jordanian side as I am unable to identify with any of them. The colors of the pant are derived from the Palestinian and Jordanian flags. In addition, Palestinians and Jordanians both have traditional scarfs that are identical but differ in color, this pattern is meant to be worn as a scarf, one that unifies both of the cultures.
Final Zine:
The zine aims to illustrate the how due to my inability to identify with a home, I began to accumulate different personas depending on the different places I visit, however, I still feel like none of them are me. Even though the zine conveys a personal story of mine, the concept is presented as a space that anyone and everyone can be found in. The text and imagery are stripped to a basic abstract form in order to allow the viewer for a variety of interpretations and to allow them to relate to it.
