Join us from 6-8 PM on Friday, June 7, at Al-Bustan's Hub (3645 Lancaster Ave.) for the opening reception for Farah Salem's Exhibit, "A Body Knowing Its Earth." The exhibit will be open for view at the Al-Bustan Gallery from May 3, 2024 until June 28, 2024.
Location: 3645 Lancaster Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19104
Reception: Friday, June 7, 6PM - 8:30PM
View Dates: May 3 - June 28, 2024
Farah Salem is a Kuwaiti-Iraqi immigrant, interdisciplinary artist, and art therapist based in Chicago. Socially engaged artistic and therapeutic practices bridge her studio and art therapy practices. Her studio practice is rooted in photography and expands to include video, performance, fiber-based materials, and installation.
Through relational merging and mapping of human and geological bodies, Farah envisions liberation of the body and the land. By doing so, she examines themes of access, agency, power, the invisibly visible, and the potential erosion of the socio-cultural conditioning that distorts our shared realities. Her artistic goal has consistently been to bring multiple worlds together, capturing portals and spaces between them. She finds subtle affinities between geologic time, somatic movement, the human psyche, gendered trauma, ceremonial music/ dance, and healing rituals from the Arabian peninsula.
Farah holds an MA in Art Therapy and Counseling from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Visual Communications from Gulf University for Science and Technology (Kuwait). Her artwork has been featured internationally at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), EXPO CHICAGO Art Fair, American University Museum (Washington DC), United Photo Industries Photoville Gallery (New York), Patel Brown (Toronto), Engage Gallery (Chicago), Bolivia Biennial, Paris Contemporary Art Fair, Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), and Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait). She completed the Radical Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center, Hatch Residency at Chicago Artist Coalition, ACRE Artist Residency, Per|Form in Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait), and Journey to Turkey Residency with Crossway Foundation (UK).
"My current research explores two parallel threads: the renegotiation of trauma within an extracted, trauma-endured body as it moves towards belonging and re-emerges as a liberated body...I am attuned to the experience of being desensitized and disembodied from the earth. reorienting the body towards a reciprocal relationship with the earth... These practices remind us to welcome vulnerability, be humbled by natural cycles, and live in reciprocity with the land."
Find more of Farah's work on her website: www.farahsalem.com