Please Note: This exhibition is designed to be viewed through the gallery window on Thayer St.
Yasmine Nasser Diaz is the 2021 Efroymson Emerging Artist at the Institute for the Humanities.
For Your Eyes Only is the latest iteration of multidisciplinary artist Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom installation. At first glance, the constructed space is a shimmering homage to the bedroom disco—a sanctuary for uninhibited dance and self-expression. It has also become the setting from which many personal videos are made and shared widely on social media, where platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have blurred the boundary between public and private. Projected into the space is a montage of casual videos shared by female-identifying and non-binary persons of SWANA* origin dancing solo in their rooms. To some, the videos may seem innocent and innocuous, but they can also be seen as acts of defiance that assert the autonomy of bodies that have been surveilled, scrutinized, and censored throughout history. Alongside these intimate moments is a separate reel showing political figures and protest movements from the SWANA region. The images demonstrate the fluctuating attitudes and regulations impacting human rights and freedoms based on gender, and exemplify how—whether we are physically at a protest or sharing our physicality in virtual spaces—our bodies are engaged in some level of risk.
*Southwest Asian/North African
This project is supported by a grant from the Efroymson Family Fund.
Yasmine Nasser Diaz is the 2021 Efroymson Emerging Artist at the Institute for the Humanities.
For Your Eyes Only is the latest iteration of multidisciplinary artist Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom installation. At first glance, the constructed space is a shimmering homage to the bedroom disco—a sanctuary for uninhibited dance and self-expression. It has also become the setting from which many personal videos are made and shared widely on social media, where platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have blurred the boundary between public and private. Projected into the space is a montage of casual videos shared by female-identifying and non-binary persons of SWANA* origin dancing solo in their rooms. To some, the videos may seem innocent and innocuous, but they can also be seen as acts of defiance that assert the autonomy of bodies that have been surveilled, scrutinized, and censored throughout history. Alongside these intimate moments is a separate reel showing political figures and protest movements from the SWANA region. The images demonstrate the fluctuating attitudes and regulations impacting human rights and freedoms based on gender, and exemplify how—whether we are physically at a protest or sharing our physicality in virtual spaces—our bodies are engaged in some level of risk.
*Southwest Asian/North African
This project is supported by a grant from the Efroymson Family Fund.
Related Links
Explore Similar Events
-
Loading Similar Events...
