For Zahra Almajidi, her artwork, “Baggage,” gives the Detroit artist an opportunity to explore her Iraqi heritage.
The piece features a brass chain that resembles a fishing net held up by a piece of paper modeled after a reusable bag. Attached to the chain are various objects: a motion sickness packet, lip balm tube, a vial of cat hair and a pink locket with a photo of Almajidi’s two sisters when they were young.
“The (Marsh Arab) people had a strong fishing culture, so I was thinking about the net and how it gathers things,” she said. “And I’m often thinking of the objects that I live with and the things that I surround myself with.”
“Baggage” is one of the pieces featured in Almajidi’s latest exhibition, “Casting the Net,” which is on display at east side gallery Playground Detroit until Oct. 3. The fine artist and metalsmith said the show is an appreciation for the traditional crafts made by the people of southern Iraq, known as Marsh Arabs or Ahwaris.
The exhibition is one of several events happening this month as part of Detroit Month of Design. Organized by nonprofit Design Core Detroit, the festival is a citywide collaboration that gathers artists, designers and the community each September for exhibits, installations, talks and workshops. The Motor City is the first and only US city to be designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) City of Design.
Some upcoming Detroit Month of Design events include its signature Eastern Market After Dark on Thursday, and the architecture installation, “Between Your Love and Mine,” which is on display until Sept. 30. Curated by Canadian artist Stefan Novakovic and located in the city’s Little Village corridor, the installation explores themes of borders, community and kinship between the United States and Canada.
“It’s a love letter to Detroit and not seeing our border as a place of tension, but a seamless cultural space,” said Kiana Wenzell, co-executive director of Design Core Detroit.
Another highlight is the exhibition, “Anyspace? Whatever” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAD), Wenzell said. The interactive display allows guests to voice their opinions on the technological systems that structure contemporary civic life, from surveillance networks to data infrastructure. Guests can explore these themes through tabletop games, computer-generated films, archives and more, Wenzell said. Anyspace? Whatever was produced by rootoftwo, the creative and civic studio of Detroit-based artists Cézanne Charles and John Marshall. The exhibition is on display until Sunday and a panel discussion with the artists is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday.
All of the Month of Design events tie into this year’s theme, “Design moves the future.” The theme represents a call to action and having an idea transform from theory to practice, Wenzell said.
“It’s really about how designers, in their practice, are addressing the health and well-being of our community and improving the quality of life for people living in cities,” she said.
Casting the net
Almajidi, the artist, said she became “obsessed” with Iraqi craft objects in 2020 while she was a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy of Art. One of those art forms are embroidered wedding rugs, or izar, which were often made by unmarried Iraqi women for their bridal trunks.
In the past six years, Almajidi has been figuring out her relationship with the traditional artwork, as well as to southern Iraq, a region that’s unfamiliar to her. Almajidi’s family was displaced from Iraq in the early 1990s after then-dictator Saddam Hussein began destroying an area called the Mesopotamian Marshes by draining them. This was done to punish Marsh Arabs for participating in uprisings against his regime, reported Yale University’s School of Environment.
Alamajidi was born in 1994 at a refugee camp before her family immigrated to the United States two years later.
Eventually, marsh water levels were reduced to 90%. While water and vegetation started coming back in the early 2000s after embankments and drainage works were dismantled, droughts in Iraq in recent years have put the marshlands back in jeopardy.
Almajidi has learned about the Mesopotamian Marshes by looking up news articles online about the region. But when it comes to talking to her family about the displacement, they’ve been a little reluctant, Almajidi said.
“Maybe it’s because of the trauma of it all,” she said. “My mom never really talks about the specifics of the thing. Through my research, I find something out, I ask her about it and then she’ll open up.”
Working on Casting the Net has helped Almajidi erase some of the “in-betweeness” she felt as a person who is Iraqi but has no connection to the country and its culture. The artist has only visited Iraq once, back in 2008 during the Iraq War.
“This was one way for me to have a connection to a culture that I’m so often told is such a significant part of who I am and my being, but just feels so unfamiliar,” Almajidi said. “It’s an attempt to get closer to this part of who I am in the only way I can do– through my art and my craft.”
InVision festival
Meanwhile, Detroit nonprofit The Vision is gearing up for its second InVision Arts and Culture Festival, taking place from 4-9 p.m. Saturday at its headquarters, 17340 Lahser Road.
The event will include a local artist and vendor market, hands-on art activities, community organizations and resources and food trucks. Also happening at the festival is a community open mic welcoming performers of all levels, a poetry hour with storytelling collective Griot Detroit and a closing concert featuring emerging Detroit artists. The lineup includes poet One Single Rose, R&B/pop singer Bowdre and Jacob Ardor, folk/rock singer Luke Watson, producer and DJ SPRNG4EVR and more.
“This is the first time we have a poet headlining a non-poetry related show,” said London Harris, a host and event coordinator for The Vision. “That’s really nice because normally we don’t get a lot of poets that come out and we wanted to make sure that we incorporate that.”
InVision will also serve as the launch for the third issue of Vantage magazine, a project of The Vision run by co-founder Layla McMurtrie.
While McMurtrie is also a music artist who released her debut album earlier this year, she’s not planning to perform, she said.
“I’m doing a lot of the organizing for the festival, so that would be hard,” McMurtrie said. “Our goal is to platform other artists, not ourselves.”
While Harris and McMurtrie will be busy hosting and enjoying InVision, they can’t wait to hear from attendees after the event.
“I love feedback because that tells us how to grow,” Harris said. “I know this sounds crazy, but I actually like when the event is over so I can hear people talk about it. You always have a great event if people are still lingering.”