Nostalgic Pasts | a Dystopian Present | Imagined Futures

A conversation with multimedia artist Alia Ali exploring her recent work, Yemeni Futurism, and why conflict is more profitable than peace

Alia Ali, النجم الأحمر // The Red Star Installation (2020) Benton Museum of Art. Photo credited to Ian Byers-Gambers. Courtesy of the Artist.

With text by Miranda Mckee, curator and arts educator.

“We grew up around textiles. And when you think about how our history was told in Yemen, it was in fact done by people that weren’t us, in a language that was not ours, namely for our colonizers, the British.”… “The word ‘text’ in English comes from the word textile; it’s not the other way around. So, when you think about the symbolism, particularly for indigenous groups, and the patterns that are invoked which manifest in these fabrics, that is a language.”