Carnation – Vol 1, 2018

Fall 2018

Carnation

Artists Artists and and Writers WritersAddress AddressDisplacement Displacementand andDiaspora Diaspora

Vol. 1

Contents Introduction.......................................................................Carnation Always 22......................................................................Jade Morgan Herbs of the Diaspora Sweat Pad...............................Nada Beydoun Songs of our mothers...................................Chukwudubem Ukaigwe the nomad...............................................................Marisha Thomas Ikebana poetry............................................................Nancy Nguyen Dear white customers.....................................................Mahlet Cuff I will!........................................................................Hassaan Ashraf Big Man.....................................................................assiyah jamilla Purge.......................................................................Vanessa Godden Ninuno (Ancestors)........................................................Zee Morales Stone of the Dream-worshipper..........................Anahita Jamali Rad black ink/red blood rivers......................................Sarah Hassouneh After Immigration........................................................Ana Speranza The Art of Weeping (Palestine)....................................Mary Hazboun Therapy...............................................................Ketty Haolin Zhang Split......................................................................Sarah Hassouneh Hope is the thing you give to yourself.......................Marisha Thomas Special Processed (Native) American Meat...................Annie Beach Wheatpaste Recipe.....................................................Destructables The Unapologetically Brown Series...........................Johanna ToruĂąo

Introduction Sweetened condensed milk. On bread, on toast, in cake, or in coffee.

By the spoonful—or not. As editors from three different cultural backgrounds, we each have different nostalgic associations with sweetened condensed milk. Coming together to form Carnation, we chose this name precisely because it was a point of familiarity between our individual contexts.

We formed this project to find where we diverge and meet in our individual experiences, but also to open it up to a larger conversation.

This is where having a zine made sense. By way of assembling a collection of works in a zine format, we see the discontinuous and intertextual perspectives that hold diasporic realities.

Often when we think about diaspora, it can bring up connotations of loss, coercion, fragmentation, and scattering. But diaspora also signals abundance and multiplicity, rife with possibilities. There is richness in the very act of reaching, whether that is for home, connection, or wholeness; there is power held within language and art to resist and redefine.

Carnation is edited by Christina Hajjar, Luther Konadu, and Mariana Muñoz Gomez. We are based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on Treaty 1 territory. Treaty 1 is the traditional territory of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the Homeland of the Métis Nation. We are guests on this land, each having come here at different points in our family history. We recognize the importance in rejecting colonial-capitalist ideologies and values.

While deciding how to extend our call for submissions for this zine themed around diaspora and displacement, topics of difference, distance, and assimilation brought to mind the importance of prioritizing BIPOC (black, Indigenous, people of colour) contributors.

As artists, we each work through a lens of diaspora and displacement in our own ways, and we are excited to learn from other artists and writers around the globe. We are grateful to everyone who submitted their creative time and energy to this zine and look forward to sharing this project with you. xoxo Carnation PS—we know Nestlé is a bad boy

Always 22

The first of her family born in Canada, JADE MORGAN navigates the line between identity and heritage through her art. Her work explores the contrast between Western ideals and her Jamaican ancestry.

Herbs of the Diaspora Sweat Pad. Babounij (chamomile), ward al juri (damascus rose), na’na’a (mint), za’arour (hawthorn), ‘ayzaan (sage), yasmeen (jasmine), za’atar (thyme).

NADA BEYDOUN is a second-generation Lebanese-Canadian settler from Kjipuktuk/Halifax.

She is currently studying Clinical Herbalism at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Tkaronto/ Toronto and was part of the POC Herbal Freedom School. Her interests include plants, healing justice, Islamic & ancestral healing, refugee rights, SWANA region topics, and decolonization. You can follow her plant-journey on instagram @beybotany.

Songs of our mothers

CHUKWUDUBEM UKAIGWE is a Nigerian artist based in Canada. He is currently enrolled in the school of fine art at University of Manitoba. He is known for his paintings and sculptures.

Chukwudubem puts his works into series. His paintings are a translation of his thoughts, experiences, and reactions to societal happenings.

the nomad i don't know what other people have heard; little truths rear their heads between my teeth like worms it is so so dry here the ground too hard to walk on; many ground eggshells shifting under my feet like caked sand it has been so long since i could be sure of something; Wanting help becomes headstrongness "help" becomes cheaper each time it leaves my mouth. red sand scraped from my forehead when i wake: last night i dreamt about home again. it has never been so bright before. the presence there had kept all but the most tempting corners warm and yellow so when at last i soft-padded into a quiet black space two horrible arms struck at my neck and guided me somewhere down trauma causes me to wander barefoot unbothered by sharp ground; more concerned with running i kept running away from home forbidding myself from dissolving into tongue sliding into latch into bolt sliding into lock so it showed me all of itself, almost a memory it was so sharp and i felt no fear while hiding within it that is the worst thing you must have heard; me, stowed away like tender cattle home: i am walking out towards it as it moves faster away home: it follows me until i am there again knees sunk into the sand before the hourglass reforms home: find me mausoleum-ed there i lived in it for many years and now it lives inside me MARISHA THOMAS maintains that if she came back as a flower, she would be an iris. She has been featured in several publications, including tenderness, yea’s 2017 poetry anthology “AllAmerican Rejects.” Her self-published chapbook, “That Chill at Daybreak” can be purchased on Gumroad. She thanks you for enjoying her work.

NANCY NGUYEN carries a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honours from the University of Manitoba and is a working graphic designer. She is currently self-studying and practicing the Japanese art of flower arrangement called Ikebana, as well as other related forms of Asian art such as sumi-e

Ikebana Poetry

ink painting. She considers most of her arrangements to be Ikebana inspired because instead of traditionally using freshly cut flowers, she is working with dried and dying plants in free style forms.

Dear white customers I am not here to please you Entertain you with the possibility That I may or may not be from here I am not here to impress you with how Good my english is or how well I speak I do not get paid enough to give you a whole lesson on an African country that you do not know about Assuming that I am a just the token to give you all the knowledge The internet and libraries exist So please take your coffee, donut and ignorance with you out the door

MAHLET CUFF is an interdisciplinary artist from Treaty one territory so called Winnipeg, Manitoba that uses mediums such as photography, collaging, textiles, sound to produce her work.In her free time she loves reading feminist zines, watching cheesy romantic comedies and taking down the patriarchy one day at a time.

I will!

HASSAAN ASHRAF moved to Winnipeg in 2012 to pursue an MFA. His practice reflects on his journey as a displaced artist, dealing with themes of cross-cultural experience and the west’s discomfort with alien cultures. You are welcome to contact him at ashraf.hassaan@gmail.com for help with translation and to have a conversation about racism and realities of being a POC.

Big Man Seidou shucking oysters by the lagoon Seidou severing the head of a chicken wetting it down grey, freeing feathers snowing them there on the hot ground Watching Monsieur Bambara through the rearview watching him smile at all the girls as they drive on waking subtle gestures, drinking hot things Monsieur says hot makes him cool off Seidou writing to his sister in France she works in a villa for a grande dame, la-bas Seidou’s sister posting once a month selfies of her proud in front of a villa Seidou asking his sister for money Seidou smacking her children for her Seidou is Tonton, forever bad cop dark face red eyes scare the children Seidou in the sun dreaming of america tells all the girls he’s going to america drives the german car when Monsieur isn't home drives by the girls looking american Seidou in his sunday best sharp ends and bones pressed to death, pressed bent beyond a man smile cutting his face so neatly driving his german car so clean Seidou goes to the Riviera friends in tow, gucci gang on the Riviera making moves german gang on the Riviera making moves dropping english slang like a gang Garba for the whole gang, it’s on Seidou best garba in town, just ask Seidou fish crisp and running juice down runnin’ game piping hot like Seidou Seidou fucks like an american just ask Fanta, she learned the good way post-guiness, Seidou’s savage, in a bad way like an american, puts his mouth in the bad place

Seidou running game, running show drives the german car like an american weapon swears he’s been there, swears he seen it dressed to the nines, so you can’t tell Seidou making moves, running business businessman in a business car, trading horses businessman trading lanes, he races businessman moving product, Yopougon MBA Seidou running his mouth like a boy Seidou showing his mouth teeth and all Seidou running his money like a king Seidou the baller got in a way and lost it Seidou wasted, mouth and cock out of gas Seidou gone, german car out of gas feat of engineering, godly, out of gas sitting in the dirt, like a man out of gas Seidou posted on the train tracks trying to push the car but he’s unfuelled burned it all on pretty girls and new cousins burned it all looking new, bright and shiny best Seidou posted on the train tracks trying to push the car but he’s no god monsieur coming home on sunday ready to kill him to never, big man Seidou posted on the train tracks can’t push the car but still hopin’ on God Seidou, big man, tryin’ to make moves Seidou trynna trade on movin’ the car Seidou big man makin’ bad bets Seidou big man didn’t make it train came, he waited ‘til the last second Seidou, killed by a train instead of mister Seidou gone body nothing killed train crash made a legend of him dying Seidou big man must be brave to take off Monsieur dreaming of him driving to Ghana ASSIYAH JAMILLA is an afro-canadian writer and artist based in Montreal. Her work focuses on ancestral trauma, diasporic context, the black body as a site, and the conversant complexities of violence, both external and self-inflicted.

Purge, 15 min live performance, kitchen table, curry, flour, chilli powder, 2018.

VANESSA GODDEN is a PhD candidate at the Victorian College of the Arts (2019) and recipient of the Melbourne International Research Scholarship. She received her BFA from the University of Houston (2012) and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2014). Her artistic practice uses performative gestures to explore how personal histories of sexual assault, racialization, and the body in relation to cultural space can be conveyed through material engagements with the body.

Ninuno (Ancestors) Gusto kong malapit sa aking mga ninuno.

Gusto kong makauwi sa kanilang lupa.

Gusto kong lumangoy sa kanilang dagat.

Pero...mahirap.

Nahihirapan akong bigkasin ang kanilang salita.

Madalas...ako'y nakakalimot.

Madalas, ako ay nawawala.

Sino ba sila? Sino ba ako?

Sino ang ninuno ko?

Minahal ba nila ang araw?

May minahal ba silang panginoon?

Gusto ko silang makilala.

Pag nakilala ko sila, Baka makilala ko rin ang aking sarili.

I am a 21 year old queer Filipino immigrant, and I use they/them pronouns. I am dipping my toes into the world of poetry and art, in an effort to express all the complicated feelings I have floating around in my head. I have 2 cats, I love ice cream, and I want to make the world a better place - ZEE MORALES

Stone of the Dream-worshipper. Cotton fabric, embroidery thread. 2018.

ANAHITA JAMALI RAD is currently based on Tio'tia:ke on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehå:ka peoples. Her work explores materiality, history, affect, place, and displacement.

She has published a few chapbooks, one full-length collection of poems entitled _for love and autonomy_, and is currently working on an apparel-based poetics project called Fear of Intimacy.

black ink/red blood rivers I been thinking about ink a lot lately, that obsidian silk that draws borders.

How maps are drawn in ink the permanence and rigidity of its seal.

When they quartered up my country like a chicken at the butcher I imagine they signed the deal in ink. red blood black skies

black ink red streets

red blood rivers

When they parceled up this soil, I imagine they inked the borders on a map splitting homes and rivers across the belly bleeding crimson, bisected by kohl black lines.

Ink knives carving crevices writing their new names in ink on the page.

The newscaster recounts a sad story of ink and blood and loss and hope of an Iraqi family who inked their wrists with matching tattoos, out of desperation so that they could find one another if they were captured.

Ink, that obsidian silk that draws borders and binds men. red blood black skies

that breaks soil

black ink red streets

that breaks skin

red

blood rivers.

SARAH HASSOUNEH is a writer, photographer, and educator based out of Portland, OR. She has taught and lived in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Ramallah, Palestine. Her work explores themes of identity, place, and diaspora.

After Immigration In 2001 amidst the financial crisis in Argentina, my sister was born.

My parents have told me that she isn't the reason they finally put in motion the plan to immigrate, but in all the stories I've gathered from family and friends, to me it's only thing that makes sense. By September 2003 we were at the airport getting ready to go through security and start the 24-hour journey to our new lives.

There are images that get glued into your mind—memories that come back at unexpected times. I will always remember looking at my grandfather hooked up to an oxygen tank. Or looking up at the stars as I swam in an Amazonian river. In that moment at the Buenos Aires airport, as we were leaving our family and friends for what would be eight years, I looked back to see my uncle take a call and collapse. My great-aunt, a woman whom I cherished, had died. Two weeks later, once that grief had washed over us, we got the news that my grandparents’ dog, Sandy, had also passed. And for the first time since moving, I cried.

Moving to a new country was not the glamorous experience my family had expected. The apartment we were meant to move into wasn't ready, so we spent an extra week in a Holiday Inn. My mom, not wanting us to unpack the giant suitcases we'd brought, had me wearing the same travel-worn clothes for days on end. My parents started working menial jobs - my mom at McDonald's, my dad at an Extra Foods. I got held back a grade, in case my English didn't hold up, even though I'd gone to an immersion school since I was three.

We'd immigrated with a few other families, all using the same Argentinean immigration lawyer. So, we had a ready-made landing spot. Of those families, my parents are only still in touch with one.

I've never excelled at making new friends, but I had a ready-made friend in one of the daughters who went to my school.

A year later I was skipped forward to grade six. At this point my English was nearly flawless eliciting the now-hated, then anticipated, comment of you can't even tell it's not your first

language - you barely have an accent! But, I was different. The start of puberty meant that my Mediterranean-Latin mix roots showed through in a dusting of visible black hairs on my upper lip. My eyebrows strained to join together even though I diligently plucked them. We'd heard the stereotypes by that point that Canadians were the nicest people - kind, mindful, apologetic. But Canadians were not nice to me. My uninspiring nickname became "Hairy-Lip".

My grooming habits now border on the obsessive, and I am still haunted by the nickname. Having this difference so prominently marked out to me. And the exclusion that followed, including my one aforementioned friend ditching me, made it so I began to reject all difference. I wore my unaccented English proudly, developed the bad habit of speaking for my parents in situations I perceived they weren't being understood (something I struggle with even today).

In her novel Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about how 'othering' is done hierarchically in the US, with marginalized groups exerting whatever social power they can over further marginalized peoples. In our plight to belong, my family became guilty of this. In Winnipeg, Immigrant is better than Indigenous. My dad began working for the provincial government where he learnt how to be racist to belong. It wasn't until reading an Inconvenient Indian that he felt the impact that years of colonialism and racist ideology had had- and how that had affected him. I'm still learning how to overcome some of the biases I've picked up in order to belong. I'm someone who parrots the people I want to be around mostly because of how deeply I felt my own difference. Now I can say that I pick who to be around a little better. I'm working to shake learnt prejudice in order to give others chances at unassimilated belonging - chances I wish I'd had.

In 2011 after I graduated high school my family had the chance to go back to Buenos Aires for a visit. I was shocked walking into my grandparents’ house and seeing that the giant rooms of my youth were modest. That when my parents remarked at how big Canadian houses were - they weren't kidding. The three dizzying weeks of catching up shook me. I came away feeling exhausted by the fact that all my extended family was made up of strangers. My identity amongst my Canadian friends and peers was rooted in my

being Argentinean. I didn't have a detectable accent anymore, but any cultural difference I showed in the Canadian context I could excuse away. Saying it was due to my Bon-Airense roots removed any blame of strangeness from my personality. Yet having spent my formative years in Canada with limited Argentinean connections, it's no shock that I no longer fit in, that I was a stranger amongst the people I used as identity markers.

Returning from that trip shook my family in ways we're still dealing with. My mom became convinced that we should move back. Her mother had moved to Canada in 2006 and had passed away 8 months before our trip home. While in Buenos Aires she reconnected with her cousin, one of the last blood relations she has. Her vibrancy there is something she is denied in Canada.

Her big overtly emotional feeling-gusher of a heart is trampled by people who don't know how to interpret her good intentions.

Something is lost in translation.

My dad, however, upon return, was resolute that we could never go back. I stood with him. My sister, having gotten her first real taste of family - of that unconditional love that only family can provide wanted to live there. We are a family divided.

It's tough because so much of who I am, who my family is, is a merging of two cultural identities. When we immigrated the idea of the cultural melting pot—assimilation at all costs—was very much alive. And we've become like a chunky soup. The same in some ways but different in so many irreconcilable ways.

My parents are people who had life-long friend circles in Buenos Aires. In Winnipeg, they have struggled to maintain the few relationships that have come by with other immigrant families.

There are two or three who have been constant, but their worldviews are starkly different than that of my mom and dad. Now that my mom has found a healthy workplace in a career she loves she's connected with a few coworkers. My dad has a good friendship with his old boss. Other than that, they have no 'Canadian' friends.

My sister struggles to find the acceptance among her friends that she gets from our cousins, most of whom are her age, and most of

whom only know her from the three or so months she's cumulatively spent in Buenos Aires. Although she is by any definition the most Canadian of us, her mannerisms and character stick out like a sore thumb.

Living in Toronto with an Anglophone partner means that I encounter less chances to speak Spanish. Anytime I do I feel invigorated. But the other day at work an Argentinean customer remarked that my Spanish is accented with the lilt of an English speaker. What do I do with that? My language is so important to who I am, yet I am rusty and slow when I have to talk to strangers.

I'm starting graduate research looking at race and representation in Argentina. In the planning process for it, and I expect during the research, I will come across some of the answers to questions of my own identity that have been stirred up by my back-andforth between Canada and Buenos Aires. I hope doing something productive and investigative will help bridge the gaps of who I am. I guess I'm having a quarter-life identity crisis of sorts. One that's been brewing and building since my parents uprooted our lives in search of a better future. My mom has asked whether this has been better, whether they have succeeded in their intention. I think it's hard to say; a part of me will always wonder if I would be a more congruent person had we stayed.

One of classmates, while discussing his research among Latinx diasporic peoples selling at a flea market, noted something that resonated with my own experiences. He said recent immigrants long for their home countries, see them as a place of family and community that’s lacking in this new environment. Yet longer-term immigrants, while continuing to love their birth countries, are more reluctant to return as they no longer fit in - more foreign than local, they don’t see anything left for themselves there; see them as devoid of opportunity. The search for community and belonging is a persistent struggle I encounter. Trying to bridge the gap between two cultural selves in a way that makes sense to me.

ANA SPERANZA is an emerging writer and anthropology student. Her work discusses topics of diaspora, reconciliation, and political ecology.

MARY HAZBOUN is a Palestinian folk singer and artist based in Chicago, born and raised in the city of Bethlehem, occupied Palestine. The Art of Weeping collection emerged as she grappled with multiple traumas of living under the Israeli military occupation and forced migration.

The Art of Weeping (Palestine)

For Mary, art is a crucial form of resistance; it is unapologetically about grief, to allow ourselves to fully feel the pain of loss in order to heal, reclaim our struggle and work towards transformative social change.

Therapy

Having immigrated to Canada as a teenager, KETTY HAOLIN ZHANG's artistic interests revolve around cultural identity, diaspora and millennial identity. Her practice relies heavily on researching how to active, amplify, and intervene with existing discourses around everyday objects in critical and playful ways.

Split I was born of salt sand; The Dead Sea split and spit out life through my mother’s flesh.

I was gifted a dead tongue, that betrayed the language my skin spoke.

My Father a faceless grain of sand in a sea of sand.

How do we know who we are?

I am born of the unknowns, the in-betweens.

Mama a Palestinian born on the 13th anniversary of alNakba, Daddy a victim of the prison system, me a pillar of salt, crumbling, but still rock.

SARAH HASSOUNEH is a writer, photographer, and educator based out of Portland, OR. She has taught and lived in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Ramallah, Palestine. Her work explores themes of identity, place, and diaspora.

Hope is the thing you give to yourself Sparrows tumbled from my throat, which is to say Tomorrow still plans to rise.

For a while, they wouldn't stop.

I would be in bed, casting shadows on Sleep.

She wore red glasses and winked at me, Silent and teasing.

Vigilance was the name of one bird; He never made his nest outside my window.

I think god creates omens to remind me of myself: Scared of the dark but always staying up late.

Birds tumble. Caterwaul. Saunter.

My throat must be velvet for them, soft enough from crying Just for them to spread their wings inside me – And then leave. The picture of freedom.

I ask, what must I forge to replace this part of myself, The little girl, sweet-faced dove-crowing, all feather and smoking wood?

How many bridges does she have to burn?

I dreamt aloud while watching those birds Their manifestation a love spell that I thought of for myself: "The future doesn't exist. It is created."

Each time my lips touch, it's like magic, in reverse.

The sparrows fall from the sky. I laugh out loud.

Imagine, undoing hope itself as an act of preservation.

I imagine god is laughing with me.

MARISHA THOMAS maintains that if she came back as a flower, she would be an iris. She has been featured in several publications, including tenderness, yea’s 2017 poetry anthology “AllAmerican Rejects.” Her self-published chapbook, “That Chill at Daybreak”, can be purchased on Gumroad. She thanks you for enjoying her work.

Special Processed (Native) American Meat

ANNIE BEACH is a Cree/Saulteaux artist residing in Winnipeg. Beach’s work focuses on stereotyped ideas of identity, as well as the issue of oversexualization of Indigenous women and girls. Annie’s work varies from paintings on canvas to collage. Beach has also created a number of collaborative murals throughout Winnipeg.

Wheatpaste Recipe For putting up posters/billboard alterations Supplies

• • • •

flour (wheat works best) sugar water container with a lid

Steps

• Boil 1 cup of water. Pour the cup of water into a saucepan and bring to a boil over heat.

• Put 3 tablespoons of flour into a bowl, add 10 teaspoons of cool water until it forms a runny mix.

• Once the water has boiled, add the runny mix to it. Stir well.

• Keep stirring. The mixture will foam up while it boils, so the

constant stirring is essential to keep it from bubbling over and to keep it from getting chunky. Keep the mix boiling for 2 minutes.

• Take the boiled mix off the heat. Add 2 tablespoons or more of sugar (for added strength).

• Let it cool. Pour into an appropriate container for carrying with you. It will keep well for about a week.

Wheatpasting

• Put a layer of paste on the wall and smooth it out, getting out the big blobs and chunks

• Attach the top of your image, holding the bottom away from the wall. Helps to have a friend. (You can also roll it out side to side for larger images.) Run the brush straight down the center of your image as you lower it onto the wall.

• Re-wet your brush with paste and paint outward from the center, working out bubbles. Do this quickly, as the paper can start to distort if you don’t wet it fast enough.

• Make sure you have the entire top covered with paste, then smooth it all out with even strokes in one direction, taking off any excess paste. It needs to be wet, not thick.

• Remember to clean your pots, tools, and brushes asap before they dry.

SOURCE: destructables.org

SOURCE: theunapologeticallybrownseries.format.com | These posters are available for download under the header, “Community Posters.” You are encouraged to use these for street art!

THE UNAPOLOGETICALLY BROWN SERIES is a creative house & street art series meant to empower communities by any means necessary. For us by us. Created by Johanna Toruño & based out of NYC.

connect with us via carnationzine@gmail.com