Novena was a capstone project that was to be performed at NYU Abu Dhabi. It was the result of more than a year of preparation and four years of education. The project was postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19 restrictions.
I’m a stranger in my own soul I’m stuck in a deja vu I feel like a ghost visiting my body in the past. I’m homesick from my old self but I’m feeling at home Sometimes I tell myself I want to go back to normal, but this is my new normal
Novena is an autobiographical performance piece exploring the impact of religious social scripts on the performance of the female body. Drawing aesthetic imagery from Catholic performance practices and rituals, Novena depicts a recluse bride who imprisons herself in a church to atone for her sins. We watch as she processes her feelings of transgressional guilt in contention with her instinctual pleasures.
Exploring the impact of religious structures on a woman’s coming of age through prose, song, and dance, Novena questions the process of outgrowing and interrogating institutional beliefs ingrained in the female psyche.
Estoy triste so I’ll light my candles one by one and when all the candles are on and all the lights are off, i’ll draw the blinds open so the neighbors can’t see and the moon can trickle in to heal the wounds the daylight sun rays left behind, i’ll open the window to change the air in my room the way doctors change the blood in a dead body for preservation chemicals, no, the way a snake sheds its skin to grow a new one, yes, and then I’ll light the incense while I turn on the shower
I’ll take a hot shower, with the bathroom door open, so the steam will fill up my bathroom, and then flood my room, empañando el vidrio, fogging the glass, and with the heat, my pores will open, like cactus flowers in the morning sun, and to remind myself I’m in my body, and it’s all I’ll ever own, I’ll clean it like a cat licking its fur, slowly, to heal, to enjoy it, to move on, to pass the time, to feel, and when I’m still in the shower I’ll scrub my hair with apple vinegar and water to take out the bad luck, spirits and oil like abuela and Reema said, the water will trickle down my face, flooding my wide pores, and I’ll wash off the salty remains with my face looking up at the sky and then I’ll rinse it all off, I treat my showers the way characters in books do, a shower or a bath is rebirth in my high school English class, now naked and still dripping, I’ll step out to the sink, look in the mirror and think how odd my body looks when the steam fogs the mirror, it makes all the colors blur, shapes get confused and I can’t tell where my hips end and where the toilet seat begins, I’ll dry my face to tone it with rose water and lavender extract and then I’ll spray it with the aloe I blended with hand-picked rose petals, I’ll dig up the coffee I don’t drink to exfoliate rub my face my butt my stretch marks, my bloated belly and swollen feet and then I’ll lay on my floor to rest until my thoughts start slipping away into a light dream, that’s how I’ll know it’s time to get up and shower again, a final cleaning to wash off the salt, I’ll rinse with cold water and think about the candles, they have been burning for too long, and I’ll realize my aloe also needs a shower, my journal needs ink, my head needs my pillow, the book on my window sill needs to be read, and my dried flowers need to be hung so I’ll rinse and step out again,I’ll feel a bit better, clearer, more fresh, but before crawling in bed I have one last step, a thick Aztec clay mask, I’ll spread it evenly on my skin, with a brush I’ll pretend my face is a canvas and the clay the paint, I’ll spread it until my face turns grey like the moon on my looking glass, and then comes the music, a fifteen minute salsa freestyle dance between my bed and my desk with a broom sweeping the floor and my hair tucked tight behind my ears and when the last beat sounds, I’ll wash my face with cold water again and then add a drop of maqui berry oil, I picked maqui in Santiago when the days got warmer and my skin got darker, I’ll spray one more time, moisturize in a circular motion with the tip of my fingers and I’ll be fresh, I’ll blow out the candles, read, sleep and I’ll be ready to wake up again.
Quarantine Archive is a new series showcasing quarantine art and creativity from around the world. These are the home movies, paintings, poems etc submitted from bedrooms. Send yours to postscriptmagazine1@gmail.com with the subject: Quarantine Archive
Poem-playlist by Jessie Bullard
“Nite Owl” by Chaimihai (taken with disposable film)
“Cluster” by Chaimihai (taken with disposable film)
Independent Film by Joana Amora
Crochet blanket by Katie Glasgow-Palmer
A Quarantine Production from Lubnah Ansari on Vimeo.Found poem by Jessie Bullard
NYU Abu Dhabi is one of the few university campuses in the world that is still operating. Many students and staff still remain on campus, while struggling to stay safe, retain a sense of community and safeguard both individual and community health. Both the editors of this magazine are part of this community. The following images document, subtly, the emotional and psychological impacts on young students whose lives have been interrupted by the looming virus, as the numbers of cases climb daily by the hundreds. NYUAD is also one of the most diverse campuses in the world; travel restrictions and other realities created by the pandemic, affect various students to different extents. What unites us is the common experience of uncertainty and that we are all somehow still in this space, together.
“I check reported cases daily. I have tabs full of articles open, I know all these facts. I was just reading these diaries from Wuhan before you came over. “
“I stayed up watching anime for six hours”
“It’s my last one – fuck it.” (shot over Zoom)
“My family’s in Jordan. They’re okay. But a lot of people back home rely on daily wages so the lockdown really affects them. I had never really thought about that before. It makes me feel so bad.”
“They cancelled my flight back home. I don’t know where I’m going to be, really.”
“I look outside to see who’s not wearing a mask.”
The big questions on our minds: is it going to come to campus? What will happen to the borders?
“I’ve been drinking instant coffee every day five minutes after waking up for a zoom class.” “You need to stop doing that, that’s sad.”
“I literally played Subway Surfers for two hours straight. Nothing else! This is terrible. My work!”
My thesis project is all about migration, movement, And suddenly, the whole world’s stopped moving.
“I’m just going for a smoke with my dinner. This is the highlight of my day.”
“My immune system is crap. I can’t take a single risk.”
“I’m good. I stay inside watching movies on my ceiling.”
There’s something really comforting about laundry machines. The soft, rhythmic whirr, the promise of warm, clean sheets. To help me sleep at night, I listen to a sleepcast on the Headspace app, called Midnight Laundry.
“There’s a big sticky note on my doorknob saying BARBIJO. It means mask in Spanish, so that I never forget.”
My photography professor asked me: why the fixation with black and white? But that’s how everything feels rights now, I told her. Colorless.
It’s funny how the whole world suddenly understands this feeling of being cramped up and staying in bed and having life reduced down to the smallest tasks, like washing your hair. Everyone’s just trying to manage and do the bare minimum. It’s like all of a sudden they understand a lifestyle that I’ve known for so long. Having depression interrupted so many things for me before; it’s almost like I feel prepared for this. The difference is now more people understand.
I bought an orchid plant at the beginning of senior year and named her Lizzo. She just started blooming again. Sometimes, that fact of her unfurling, again, is the only thing that manages to cut through the fog in my head.
My parents are everything to me. They urged me to come here. I just wanted them to be here when I graduated. I wanted to see the pride and happiness on their faces, and take pictures under the palm trees in my gown and cap.
“Theater students have had to take their capstone projects online. We can’t perform them. I’m full of loss and questions.”
I guess life is monotonous. I don’t do much.
We ended a while ago. It’s been months. I don’t know why every morning, after scrolling over updates for the UAE, I still check the number of cases where he lives.
My dad sends me daily GIFs on messenger, usually of animals or cartoons doing weird dances. I forward them to my roommate and we get a good laugh.
I’ve started deep listening to albums, and making mini themed playlists. I made a space-themed playlist inspired by my astronomy class. It’s called “moonshine”
One of the highlights of my day is seeing Ravi in the dining hall, one of the cashiers there. We both speak Hindi. He always asks me how I am, always smiles and offers a joke or two.
Every day I wonder why there are still so many construction workers on-site.
“Oh yeah, everyone’s doing these now.”
As a senior, I wish we had known exactly, that that was gonna be the last time we’d be in a classroom together.
“That book is hot. I would have sex with that book.”
Before lockdown began, I rushed out to buy a yoga mat. I started doing fitness classes on Zoom about a week or so in, because I noticed my body hurt all the time. I realized I was always crouching, and when I slept I curled up rigidly into a fetus position, putting strain on my neck and back. My therapist says this position is something I go in because I subconsciously feel threatened or anxious. I needed to get loose.
“I’ve been working on making this shelter but it keeps breaking into pieces.” Are you building a home? “I don’t even know.”
“Now I get time to journal. I haven’t done that in ages.”
“I just woke up now. But it’s good. I gotta work.”
“The same song’s been playing for the past 45 minutes. I guess apparently I’m obsessed with it.”
“How do you normally spend your days?” “I guess…I’m on the phone a lot.”
“Shoes off before you enter! This is a virus-free zone.”
“I can hear the conversations of people outside.”
All images taken by the author.
You can find more photography, and a continuation of this series, here.
I was always late to class because I didn’t want to show my face outside or even leave my bed. My depression and self-loathing weighed me down and I constantly felt as if I was sinking. Painting my face is incredibly symbolic for me; this form of expression brings me light and hope. When thoughts fill my mind of how ugly I am or how I can’t seem to motivate myself to get out of bed, my makeup is the only thing that I can control. Putting on makeup in creative ways brings so much joy to days that can otherwise be dreary and depressing. I’m very bad at vocalizing this feeling and I always worry that friends and professors think I’m stupid or I’m taking the piss by putting so much time into my makeup. But I try not to care about these assumptions and rather focus on working to better this art form and brightening my hard days.
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Simone Hadebe is a senior art major at Skidmore College.
My work is an amalgamation of real and imagined images. I’m interested in creating sensations of movement and visual rhythm that feel caught in states of either becoming or dissolving.
My source material often comes from the natural landscape, and I use it as a jumping-off point. I combine this with an ongoing questioning of the impact of technology and underlying psychological states. Surprisingly, I’ve noticed my work has become brighter and more whimsical as the world has become darker and more dystopian.
Edges play an essential role – both soft and dissolving, as well as hard and abrupt; the place where one thing ends, and another begins; the soft place to fall and the wakeup call. Forms, as well as negative space, often become structures with patterns to be explored and questioned. The result of my process is an image that usually lies somewhere between reality and fantasy, digital and natural, and confusion and clarity.
Kellie Lehr is an artist living in Fayetteville, AR. Lehr holds a B.S. in International Economics and spent 2013–2018 studying in the Drawing and Painting program at the University of Arkansas. In 2019, she was selected for Art File by The Painting Center in New York and the 2019-2020 National Museum of Women in the Arts juried registry by it’s Arkansas committee. Recent exhibitions include 21C Museum Hotel in Bentonville, AR and the 59th Annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, Tapped at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnatti and New Optics at The Painting Center in NYC. Her work is in private collections throughout Arkansas, California, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, New Jersey and New York.
Lehr is the Gallery Director for 211 South (formerly The Gallery at Midtown), a contemporary art gallery located within Engel & Volkers NWA at 211 South Main St. in Bentonville, AR.
if a crime continues to occur regardless of the enormous evidence available then is the crime invisible or the evidence invisible or are both visible but not seen?
I remember. Baba said:
“Quit your job and I will start a business for you.”
“I was at work, woman, I am tired. Be rational.”
“I am not going out with you wearing those rags.”
“Always on the phone but it’s never about money. Should we get you a job as a telephone operator?”
“I see your daughter has decided to become a prostitute now.”
“I tested negative.”
“Why do you always cry when I have done nothing to you?”
“Your whole family is retarded.”
“I keep helping your family, I never complain.”
“You are good for nothing.”
“Why would you give your school things to your mother? What does she know?”
“You look so old.”
“Why weren’t you more welcoming?”
“I never have peace in this house.”
“I didn’t beat her, she fell.”
“I didn’t beat her, she fell.”
“How are other men so lucky with finding good wives?”
“It was one-time thing; she meant nothing. It won’t happen again.”
“It was one-time thing; she meant nothing. It won’t happen again.”
“It was one-time thing; she meant nothing. It won’t happen again.”
“It was one-time thing; she meant nothing. It won’t happen again.”
“It was one-time thing; she meant nothing. It won’t happen again.”
“I tested negative.”
…
If every moment contains the possibility of being alive and being dead, then could an acute awareness of every moment also create an acute consciousness of living and dying?
“It’s been a while Alpha, you look healthy. How is your mother?”
xxxxxxx“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her.”
“Is this what she told you to say? Speak up boy.”
xxxxxxx“I don’t know.”
“Everyone back home is shocked about why she would run away; all I have ever done is love your mother.”
xxxxxxx“Baba stop!”
“Don’t take that tone with me, I still pay for all of this. You seem to forget.”
xxxxxxx“She is sick now…you made her sick. Mama is dying. How could you?”
“Crying like your mother again. I swear it’s like I had all daughters.”
xxxxxxx“She is safe. She is not going back Baba, we won’t let her go back.”
“Be careful boy, remember who I am. Remember you all would have been and will be nothing without me.”
xxxxxxx“Baba!”
“Your mother is a laughingstock; tell me one bad thing I have ever done to her.”
xxxxxxx“Get out!”
If we could separate every glance from the next, then could we separate our perception of what each consecutive glance is seeing?
“Mama, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
xxxxxxx“I wanted to be free, Alpha. To be free.”
Italic text sourced from Amar Kanwar’s exhibition The Sovereign Forest, courtesy of Ishara art foundation
Found poem by Jessie Bullard
Journal entry by Jessie Bullard
Journal entry by Bernice delos Reyes
P O S T S C R I P T 