Loving, sharing and giving through the making of necklaces with zeenah salam alsamarrai

zeenah salam alsamarrai is an Iraqi-Canadian visual artist currently studying at Simon Fraser University. alsamarrai often utilizes various media such as photography, artists’ books and producing publications to concretize her concerns with the intersections of contemporary art and the fashion system and where they align and collide, alsamarrai also investigates themes of self care and perception in relation to notions of commodity and consumption in her artistic endeavours. Aside from her practice, alsamarrai has an interest in global and local politics.

MY: So tell me about yourself. What is your background ? Who are you, what do you do and what's your name ? 

ZA: My name is Zeenah, I am an Iraqi-Canadian artist and I grew up here in B.C. I've been in school for a really long time, trying to finish school to become an artist, whatever that means.

MY: Why did you decide to become an artist, or study art and what has shaped your artistic identity?

ZA: So I actually started doing art as an accident. In grade 10, I got placed into an art class because I was not able to get into other classes that I wanted. After a while, I realized how much I enjoy making art in class. So I decided to continue and go to art school. I’ve always been a creative kid and have always been hands on and wanting to do creative things, so I knew that it would be a part of my future, but I had no idea I was going to go to art school up until that point.

MY: When it comes to finding inspirations for my own practice, my culture has always played a huge role in that. Do you think your cultural upbringing has influenced your art in any way, if so, how?

ZA: Sometimes I feel guilty for not bringing my culture into my artwork. I do think I have assimilated in a lot of ways, but at the same time, there are already so many artworks about Iraqi pain and suffering, just the Middle East in general. I don't want to be another Iraqi artist who must make political work because I have a political identity, I want to be an Iraqi artist who makes art, you know? But it's going to be political no matter what, because I am Iraqi.

It's exhausting to feel as if there has to be a politicized pressure to my identity. At one point I did try to make art political or more about my identity, but then I realized, that is something great to discuss or to write about but that is not what I want to make art about and I think that's something that I've had to figure out over the past couple of years. It doesn't have to be about war all the time. Our identity is so closely tied to war but I don't want that.

MY: Fair, you shouldn't have the pressure to do something that you're not comfortable doing.

ZA: I feel like there's already so many like Middle Easterners who make important work, I’m just not one of them. I love their work and aspire to make work like that, but I'm interested in other things. 

MY: So what is your methodology of artmaking, what's your process like?

ZA: This is something I've had to figure out recently, it's hard figuring out how you make art because it is mostly intuitive. Every artist just makes and maps out the making process, although it’s complicated, the way that I work is very much based on how I view the world and how I think about things. I would think or read about something and it gives me an idea to either look more into it or map out and produce art about it. 

Since I work with a lot of photos, I would make mood-boards because they are a very productive tool to explain my making process and concepts I have in mind.

MY: So would you say your method of making, stems from observing your surroundings and information that is accessible to you?

ZA: I guess it's observational in a way, I'm not like a painter who thinks about what to paint or somebody who works with a specific theme or medium. I guess it is based on my surroundings and the things I'm currently thinking about and interested in.

The recurring topics I work with are self care and consumption habits, as well as like the intersections between fashion and contemporary art and what that means for people who kind of lay in the middle of that intersection. All those things are very active in my life, it's something that I am always thinking about. Those are very apparent in my work because it's how I live and how I see the world.

MY: I am excited that you are working with these themes, it is new to me because I don’t have much access to knowledge on these subjects so it's nice to be educated in this regard.

ZA: I feel like people don't realize how much different topics have so much overlap in a way, because it's all about perception, how we perceive each other and how we connect and form relationships, and these are all things that are dictated by capital, in a way. I like to explore that through art.

 MY: Speaking of perception, with your recently ongoing project of necklace making, which stems from the essay of LOVING, SHARING, GIVING by Aurelie Van de Peer. An essay that highlights the acquisitive and competitive aspects of society, which the current fashion system would utilize for its marketing purposes, and the essay shows that we should instead reject these elements in order to reestablish a humane fashion system and humanity in general. 

So how would you say this essay has influenced this project and perhaps tell me more about it and elaborate on current or upcoming concepts that you have in mind?

ZA: So I started with fixating on the part of the essay where she talks about the feeling of loneliness at a party, when one puts on their best outfit and still feels like they don't fit in because they don’t match up to the standards that were set by somebody else who has more capital or influence than them.

But then I feel like I fixated too hard on that part and got lost. I began making all these necklaces for other people because they got really interested in what I was doing. It became a way to connect with people. I would ask about star signs and astrology could be something very personal to share with someone because a birth chart tells a lot about a person. I use gemstones a lot in my work and people would tell me the intentions they want to set and what they want the gemstones to mean. It becomes really intimate with strangers or friends when I make the necklaces based on memories I share with them.

I made one for a friend who we stopped by the ocean and collected sea glass together, so I made it look like it was a necklace strung out of sea glass. I realized in the practice of making these objects, I was more so connecting with the second half of the essay where she talks about loving, sharing, giving, and how in human nature, we are meant to connect with each other and we should reject these modes of fashion that make you feel like alone and unworthy.

I've become somebody who enjoys buying from local designers, I don't care for big brands anymore because they are so impersonal. When you purchase from big brands, most of the time you wouldn’t get a personalized message such as “thank you for buying.”, but when you buy locally, you would. Local designers do that because they know they're not going to be successful in the short run, so they would rather focus on the act of sharing and giving, often there is gratitude involved in things they have made to share. 

You connect with somebody because you bought something that they put their labor into. And so this project kind of became more about this act of giving and this act of knowing. And even though I am selling the necklaces because obviously I have to make money, I would love to give everything away for free if I could, I don’t care about making money, I just care about making my money back. 

MY: I think it is fair that you’re charging for your necklaces, it’s unreasonable to hand out handmade necklaces made with expensive materials for free, especially when you are a student. What other themes or ideas that you currently have in mind that are related to these subjects?

ZA: I want to explore these ideas of how we connect with each other and how capitalism has often inhibited us from this experience. Obviously covid has made everything worse, but one of the basics of human happiness is human connection, but the way we're meant to work and go about our lives kind of deprives us of that.

MY: How would you say your practice has progressed over time?

ZA: I had no idea what I was doing when I started art school and I hated it, and I just didn’t get it. But as you know, I’ve grown up, and I’ve also grown into myself, and becoming more of myself, especially over this year, spending so much time with myself forces me to grow up in a way because I’m not distracting myself.  I've discovered things that I'm really interested in and then that's made my artwork progress just by thinking about who I am. I always thought that I would get into watercolour painting when I went into art school, I haven't done one painting in my career, not one I could totally relate to.

MY: After graduating from art school, what plans do you have in the mind in the future in terms of your artistic practice? Or would you even consider pursuing in art?

ZA:  I really want to go to grad school because I love research and reading. I’m interested in researching materials like fashion and culture through the lens of contemporary art, I either want to go to grad school for art history or curation and there is a fashion strategy program that I'm currently looking at because I really want to continue learning, but I don't think I can become like a gallery artist or anything like that.

MY: I am glad to hear that you have plans in the future to still be engaged in the art world somehow. Many graduated art students I encounter always end up having to pursue other endeavours and leaving art at last since it is difficult to make it a feasible career. I hope that after we have all graduated, when we reunite again sometime in the future, we would still be into art and thrive as further improved and developed artists!

Thank you for the interview Zeenah!

https://zeenahsalamalsamarrai.cargo.site/

http://vestoj.com/loving-sharing-giving/