Yet another after the fact post. Last weekend I was lucky to be asked to participate in a really smart performance piece at White Box Gallery with Avi LaZare. The narrative of the piece concerned the hatred Israeli's and Palestinians have for each other even though at this point in time they are inextricably tied to each other. The performance involved a huge wall separating myself and Avi while we could only view each other on monitors. We're both strapped with a giant chain that passed through the wall connecting us into the great tug of war. I loved it. I'm still bruised as heck and was limping all the next day. But I hope he chooses to do it again b/c it's really a powerful piece.

I'm not a 100% sure where this will be held at NYU but at some time that Monday evening I'll be a visiting artist talking about my perculiar niche of dressing women up in niqalb (covered head to toe with only their eyes visible) and making some type of art out of it. There's a slight possibility I'll have some 2010 works to show but in case I can't I still have lots of 2009 work that hasn't been shown yet. In either case I love this type of stuff, especially when the audience expects I'm going to be showing calligraphy. Actually I just might, but it'll have my own twist on it. Consider yourself warned, I'm changing the game right before your eyes.

Right off the bat you're not going to get an answer from me - YET. This issue popped up on the IECN Islamic School listserve, and I was so impressed at the crazy assumptions people where throwing around when it came to what young Muslims consider their self identity. Some people are clearly out of touch with the very kids they are around by choice of their careers. Well, conveniently this happens to be the direction my dissertation is heading and I decided to do some pilot studies over the past few month to see little glimpses of how indigienous American Muslim kids are integrating multiple identies into something totally new.

On April 2-4th I'll be at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Education Conference to present some of the results of my pilot research. Additionally, since I tend to pontificate when I get handed a microphone, I'll be sure to talk about all the things I think we can do to improve private Islamic school pedagogy in relation to using the arts in a manner to stimulates critical thinking. So typical of me!