Children of Yam
Shono’s debut solo exhibition at Athr gallery, Jeddah
In this series of work, paper is seen as the land we find ourselves standing on and the ink the forces driving us out of our lands. Together, the paper and ink are the record of events. We stand on pages with stories from the past, pages we cannot open, a book of stories we cannot read, a document of lessons we cannot learn from.
Children of Yam explores these notions through the fictional story of Yam, the forgotten fourth son of the biblical and Quranic character Noah. Yam refused to climb onto the Ark and chose instead to seek refuge on a mountaintop. Though vilified in the religious narrative for disobeying his father’s commands, Shono saw in him a figure who turned down doctrine and trusted in himself and his free will. Fear of death did not drive him into the safety of his father’s faith. To that end, the artist assumed that Yam survived the deluge and that his children became the refugees of the world, forever fleeing floods. His story, and the story of his lost children, is a story of immigrants through time: the forgotten, the inked over, the displaced. Shono draws our attention to the fact that though some of us are sedentary, we too were once,and again will be, displaced.
Curated by Maryam Ibrahim.
Page III, from the Monumetna series 2016 Ink on paper, 21x 28.5 cm
This series of 14 miniature interpretive works documents real places and events that have occurred somewhere in the world. Seen from above, events of separation, conflict, loss and incarceration are empathized with but from a satellite distance, an unspoken I’m Sorry From Above. Each work is only titled with the GPS coordinates of the event; the true story of each lies in those coordinates.
36.2021° N, 37.1343° E, 2016, Ink on paper 57 x 57 cm
31.6601° N, 35.1424° E, 2016, Ink on paper 57 x 57 cm
35.1655°N , 45.9896 °E, 2016, Ink on paper 57 x 57 cm
36.6469°N 37.0830°E, 2016, Ink on paper 57 x 57 cm
Three sculptural books The Wall, The Weight, The Wedge, 2016, ink on paper & polymer element, 10 × 29 cm.
A series of sculptural books, each book a seven-day journey and a story of displacement.
The Wall
The Weight
The Wedge
Children of Yam, 2016 film. Music by: Mary Rapp 4:43 minutes
Page II, from the Monumetna series 2016 Ink on paper, 29 x 14.5 cm
The three sons of Noah - Shem, Ham and Japhet- who survived the great flood while the fourth son Yam, journeyed to the mountain to seek refuge from the deluge. His children, the displaced and the forgotten.
Sibsa I, II & III, 2016, Ink on rice paper & polymer clay 220 x 71 cm
Sibsa 'my soul'. A personal piece about a mother and the shrouds she stitches together for her three displaced children.
The perfect mousetrap; borders, refugee camps, conflict, political and cultural persecution and vilification are but some of the traps migrants face on their journey towards displacement. Unavoidable and posed to ensnare.
Documents of displacement. Geological cross-sections through a history book we are no longer able to open. A layering of the same events over the course of time; the causes of these repeated tragedies become wedged through the pages and stand out like monuments to a forgotten past, devoid of meaning. No lessons to be had.
An attempt to peer between the pages of time to learn from the past.
Plain I, 2016, Ink on paper & polymer, 38.5 × 14.5 cm
Plain II, 2016, Ink on paper & polymer, 38.5 × 14.5 cm
Today we are local, tomorrow we are the displaced. Two plains to the same story, we journey around the pages until we all return to drink from the same springs that flood us.
The Well, 2016, Ink on paper 42 x 29.5 cm (per panel), 42 x 147.5 cm (unfolded)