Blue NotePhoto Series
20237 Artworks

Listening to a melody and suddenly there is a note that is intentional yet dissonant, like an accident, a mistake; it gains importance by being so different from the rest. Something that doesn’t fit, but the tension is clear in the note whose strangeness gives power to the whole piece, and the memory of it is more than a sound.

Studies have explored the notion that we experience sound differently than other forms or artistic expression. As we develop in the womb, listening to our mothers’ beating hearts, the absolute melodic sound of a heartbeat becomes the sound we all share. Even stronger than smell, sound has the capacity to influence our memories of the past and to create new connections, moving us emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

In terms of origin, the blues appears to have derived from a cappella work songs of African slaves, and in consequence, we might assume that its notes would be closely related to the musical scales of western Africa: “just intonation” rather than “equal temperament”. Just, not equal.

So how did evolving music take on the name of the blues? And why is this beautiful color— the color of the sea and sky, the color I bathed in as a child in Yemen, the color of the sky I have gazed upon from every part of the world—perceived as the color of sadness? Apparently this is a western concept, with origins of the color being associated with depression dating back to the 17th century. In India, however, blue is the color of happiness.

I spent some time in Rajasthan, in 2021, after coming down with my own case of the blues. I stepped outside of myself for a while, and turned for inspiration to the fabric markets and ateliers, learning all I could about these world-famous woodblock prints. The process involves sound, as the heavy wood blocks pound the print to the cloth, in a perfect rhythm pattern that echoes the imperfect repetition of pattern. There is perfection in imperfection, like the blue note, creating an exquisitely imperfect cotton fabric. I combed the marketplace for every pattern of blue. This was also the first time I invited tailors to collaborate on creating garments through trial and error. Mistakes. That’s the genesis of the series: trying to find perfection through imperfections. Trying to find potential in the imperfection.

I returned with my blue fabrics to my newly adopted home of New Orleans, and the first photo series I created in this new place was BLUE NOTE (2023). There I was, a few meters below sea level, surrounded by blue water, trying to capture the elusive note.

When I moved to New Orleans, I realized that my love for the United States had begun with my love for the music of black women. In my childhood bedroom in Yemen, I would dress up and sing along to the rare imported cassette tapes of Whitney Houston, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tina Turner. Imagine, a young Yemeni girl living in one of the most ancient cities in the world, singing into an imaginary microphone dressed in imaginary leather pants. I fell in love with it all. Only later would I understand that this music was born from the worst form of slavery, genocide, rape, from the existential need to use the language of music to communicate with people from different tribes, different cultures. Music as an act of survival, of worship, of looking forward and of not forgetting the past. better future. Such is the complexity of history, the beauty coexists with inconceivable pain, all of sitting right there on the surface of things, in plain view. The act of turning violence into something that is beautiful, powerful and brave: some of the best art comes from the most desperate circumstances.