Arts Lab 7.0: Salma Hussein | Month III - Let’s face what we fear the most… heartbreaking!

This month carried a lot of heaviness and sorrow. It was also a chance to open doors we usually keep shut as humans, doors we’re afraid to face because of what lies behind them, the old wounds we might not be ready to heal yet… and, honestly, we’re rarely ever truly ready.

Working this month on the JEMOM Museum was a gateway to something deeply human, and a reminder that we are all human, and our struggles are shared, regardless of our religion or nationality.

Are you ready for the journey?

Findings:

This month, I discovered that as a person, I’m still not ready to face sadness. It still triggers me deeply and becomes very disrupting for me. I realized that, in order to survive, I often avoid fully absorbing emotions. And when I lose that control and start feeling everything intensely, it affects me so strongly that I end up having panic attacks.

Because I’m constantly empathetic, especially toward sad and painful stories, it becomes very hard for me to avoid immersing myself in them.

That’s exactly what happened during my journey with the JEMOM Museum. I started listening to stories and watching films that expressed the survivors’ emotions and what they went through. Hearing all these stories made my feelings even heavier and more tangled, because I felt every story as if I were the one who had lived it. I had deep empathy for everything they experienced, and I found myself asking: As a human being, what can I possibly do to help stop this injustice from continuing?

Another discovery I made this month is that not all of us experience sadness in the same way, nor do we express it or deal with it in the same manner. This became clear to me when I was at school talking to the kids about what happened during the Holocaust, the Jews who were killed, and the horrific events that took place. I found some children joking and laughing about these stories, and at first I was shocked, how could anyone laugh at death and suffering? But after a while, I understood. I realized that this is exactly what we do in our Egyptian society during funerals: we laugh and chat because that’s our way of escaping from confronting grief. And the kids are doing the exact same thing. It’s their defense mechanism to avoid feeling like they’re facing the injustice of reality and a world so different from the cartoons they watch. It’s simply an escape, a fear of a dark truth. And it doesn’t mean the person lacks empathy, as I first thought; it’s just the only way they know to protect their heart.

Feelings:

It would be unfair to say that sadness and heaviness were the only feelings I had during my journey to JEMOM, because there was also excitement and joy the whole time I was working with the children. I was amazed by their talent and their delicate emotions, and by how gifted they are at expressing their feelings, like when they composed the song, wrote the letters, and even in their clay work. They impressed me with their strong sense of form and their ability to create shapes with such artistic sensitivity, even without looking at any reference.

After the first residency, I felt it would be impossible to build a bond and a strong relationship with the youth at the school like the one I had last month. But the happiness and connection I felt with them were indescribable. Every day, we grew closer as human beings. They trusted me more, and they opened up to me about their secrets and personal struggles.

I’ll never forget a girl who told me on the first day, when she saw all the kids hugging me: “I don’t like touch at all, not even hugs. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t like hugging anyone.” I respected that completely, thanked her for her honesty, and told her, “I won’t hug you, and if you ever want to, I’m always here.”

By the third day, as soon as she saw me, she threw herself into my arms. And from that day on, she always hugged me, trusted me more, and even sang for me, though she was too shy to do it in front of her friends at school.

My experience with them was a friendship being built, mutual love, trust, and understanding, not just time we were spending together. Every day, I watched them open up more, and their talents shine even brighter. And that filled my heart with happiness and pride, because I knew many of them had never felt like anyone was proud of them before. I wanted to give them that feeling.

Facts:

After my personal artwork broke in the kiln one day before the exhibition, it became a reality I had to face and deal with, because there was no time to change my project or start a new one. I found myself reassuring myself that everything would pass, and I was confident in my ability to fix it. God is always with me and helps me, so I felt calm, even though everyone around me couldn’t understand how I was so composed.

The truth is, it was an act of surrender to fate, and also because I know my abilities. I know I’m a magician, I can fix it and come up with an idea even better than the original. I actually enjoyed the process of repairing it, because I love fixing broken and damaged things. It was far more enjoyable than I ever imagined, and I was curious to see what I would end up creating and what would come out of it in the end.

Later, when the work was exhibited, one of the children from my residency, someone I’m very close to and whose opinion I truly value, came to see it. I asked for his honest feedback, and children never lie. He told me he would give it a 10 out of 10. I asked him which project he liked more than mine, and he said Beyza’s project deserved first place, and that mine came in second and yes, I agree!

Honestly, at every exhibition I feel proud of myself, of course. But when I see my friends and their projects, and the amount of effort and hard work I’ve been witnessing all along, this time was different. After watching the play, I got goosebumps. I felt like I had stepped outside this world and was watching truly heavy-weight actors who, with the simplest available resources, created miracles, whether through lighting, music, or sound.

Every single detail was impressive, and I was as happy for them and their success as I was for my own. The truth is, they opened a window of hope for all of us, and for those who come after us, showing how it’s possible to create something that professional with minimal resources, while still daring to dream of going even further.

Future:

My plan for the next exhibition in the future, and for my work with the children during the residency, is to learn new crafts and experiment with different things, so that it becomes a journey for me to learn new skills and art forms as well, not just for them. Things like working with wood and metal, jewelry making, alongside the main art forms I already practice. I feel the need to bring in new areas to learn so I don’t get stuck, and so I can feel like I’m learning alongside them, discovering different things together.

My choice of my partner for the next residency, Monica, came from plans we had a long time ago. We believe we’re very different, and that’s exactly what makes it the best combination: the way she plans everything so carefully, and the way I improvise spontaneously. We meet somewhere in the middle, we learn from each other, and I hope this becomes a reality in the near future.

One thing I will definitely do in the future is start my project early, so I don’t pressure myself or get stressed at the last minute before the exhibition, and so I don’t spend too much time in the research phase, since it takes a long time away from actually executing the project.

I also want to include more than one craft and more than one project for the children, to give them the chance to try different and new things and to improve their experience even more. And I’m determined not to push myself too hard or sacrifice my health the way I did with the catalogue work. I want to put my physical and mental health before my work and before anything else.

This monthly report was written by Salma Hussein, our Egyptian volunteer taking part in a seven-month Arts Lab 7.0 mobility, co-funded by the European Union under the European Solidarity Corps.