 Tech Hawaii here at the Honolulu Biennial fantastic exhibit that we encourage everyone to check out So we're here with one of the incredible provocative artists. That's here at the exhibit Sama Alshabi and she has she's just doing some incredible work So I'm just gonna go ahead and jump right in and ask her some questions about it So hello, and thank you so much for speaking with us today. Thank you I am so happy to be here. It's just it's such a pleasure Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your background as an artist? I'm a Palestinian Iraqi. I was born in Iraq and My life has been very much determined by forced migrations political refugee to the United States So I'm not an American citizen, but that that Childhood I had and my upbringing of being in constant migration has really informed my work I'm also a professor at University of Arizona Teach photography and video and I'm showing a video work here at the biennial Called wasl, which is the Arabic word for union and it's part of a longer project Seven-year project called silsila, which means link or chain link in Arabic Did you tell us a little bit more about that work and also its connection to Hawaii and other islands? Well, I was here a few years ago in 2014 for the chain of fire prologue exhibition of the biennial and Was very taken by the many stories I heard of the impending issues of with climate change and the rise in global seas it connected to the work I had been working on for seven years I'm from a semi-arid dry desert region where the end of water water stress than the fresh water is a Really uprooting lives and creating conflict on the ground. It's one of the source issues of how many wars are starting over People's placements jobs the end of the agrarian lifestyle and I was also participating in the Venice Biennial in 2013 I was invited by the Maldives pavilion and They're also Facing a kind of climate Absolutely issue because they're going to be drowning under the the waters They're 20 80s the year that they're supposed to go underneath the water So I was connecting these issues in my work but the end of fresh water in the Middle East and North Africa and Linking these stories to other communities that are facing Disaster environmental disaster and that how we need to be working together and cooperating together because we're in a global system We're an environmental system. What happens in one place affects another that is absolutely true So why don't you tell us a little bit about the work itself and how it shows that interconnection? the video is produced over seven years of Most of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa There's about three countries missing just because I wasn't able to get a visa to go into them and Maldives and Hawaii and I use the my own body In all of these locations mostly really remote locations deep into the desert off the grid places that I discovered primarily through word-of-mouth and conversations, but really looking at an old text of Ibn Battuta who is The the term is the Marco Polo of the East in 14th century epic traveler who Started off in Morocco and walked across North Africa Throughout the Middle East Maldives and all the way to China and he traveled for about almost 30 years of his life and with the young scribed with a young scribe And all those notes that he had put down very meticulous details of the places that he visited including Information about the cultures the languages the what people will dress and wore the floor and the fauna and the environment And so it was kind of a roadmap for me. So this inspiration really Kick-started a journey for you this woman who has had this complex interaction with the land to sort of Begin if not recreate that journey to sort of begin one of your own Yes, and how is that been do you think if that's correct? And it's indeed correct and this was actually migration by choice and you think about that eco refugees that I'm Concerned with in my work and political refugees. It's one thing for me to make a choice to travel into these places and and perform these acts that I do in my video in my work Willingly and to see what the situation is there and to be able to tell these stories to audiences globally For those who don't have that opportunity or platform to do so that is I you know important Thank you so much for your work. I hope I wish you the best of success here at the biennial And thank you so much and goodbye everybody out there from the Honolulu biennial be sure to check it out