This installation recreates a crucial moment in my career, when I was revising a novel to resubmit to publishers but found myself overwhelmed by anxiety about "failure" and the dread of further rejection. One day, in a deliberate act of rebellion against this sorry state of mind, I printed a copy of the novel and shredded it.
When I faced the mammoth pile of shreds, I felt intense grief and regret. But I also experienced something I hadn't felt in a long time-the thrill of not knowing where I was going. I had ideas, fresh, vibrant, unfettered by convention. I realized this was the way back to my true self as an artist, and so I went.
From the start, my attitude was different. I worked swiftly, spontaneously, and without any grand notions of where it was all going. I used only the materials before me, with a little extra paper, book board, inks and paints. If a piece wasn't coming together, I discarded it and moved on. Every day became a meditation on letting go, on accepting flaws, and on distancing myself from attachment to my creations.
The book-objects I made reflect the changes I underwent on this journey, at first brooding over rejection, then moving on to the novel's themes of war, nostalgia, and loss, to finally reaching the roots of these themes and incorporating the memorabilia I have carried with me since I left Lebanon.
By the time I was working on the final piece in the collection, Catalog, I no longer felt I had destroyed my novel. Rather, it was transformed, as was I.
When I faced the mammoth pile of shreds, I felt intense grief and regret. But I also experienced something I hadn't felt in a long time-the thrill of not knowing where I was going. I had ideas, fresh, vibrant, unfettered by convention. I realized this was the way back to my true self as an artist, and so I went.
From the start, my attitude was different. I worked swiftly, spontaneously, and without any grand notions of where it was all going. I used only the materials before me, with a little extra paper, book board, inks and paints. If a piece wasn't coming together, I discarded it and moved on. Every day became a meditation on letting go, on accepting flaws, and on distancing myself from attachment to my creations.
The book-objects I made reflect the changes I underwent on this journey, at first brooding over rejection, then moving on to the novel's themes of war, nostalgia, and loss, to finally reaching the roots of these themes and incorporating the memorabilia I have carried with me since I left Lebanon.
By the time I was working on the final piece in the collection, Catalog, I no longer felt I had destroyed my novel. Rather, it was transformed, as was I.
"And don't go expecting Plato's Republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Re/vision
