Malikah member leaders. Photo: Aziz Ramos for MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1, a contemporary art center affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art located in Queens, New York, presents Malikah: an intergenerational storytelling project in partnership with the global feminist grassroots collective of the same name. The Malikah collective promotes safety and power among Black and brown women through teaching self defense, financial literacy, and healing justice, and the new installation highlights the stories of twelve of its members from Little Egypt and the North African community in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. By weaving together their experiences of migration as told through personal narratives, archives, objects, and photographs, the exhibition documents the influence of the female Arab diaspora throughout New York City’s history.
The Malikah installation. Photo: Marissa Alper for MoMA PS1
“In art spaces across the city there are a lot of North African artifacts, particularly Egyptian artifacts, but never do you walk into a museum and see stories, artifacts, or objects of living Egyptian women, of North African people, being told and framed through our own perspectives,” says community organizer Rana Abdelhamid. She founded Malikah and was born and raised by immigrant parents in Little Egypt. Abdelhamid pitched the idea for an exhibition to amplify those perspectives to assistant curator Elena Ketelsen González. In turn, González helped facilitate an eight-month residency for Malikah as part of MoMA PS1’s Homeroom program dedicated to community-centered practices and artists. The group hosted workshops on personal accounting, held artmaking classes, and recorded oral histories for a documentary that will premiere in the exhibition. “[When] our stories are told through a euro-centric lens, it separates our realities from our histories. This project allowed us to reclaim our stories and feel pride in the struggles we’ve overcome collectively,” Abdelhamid says.
The Malikah installation. Photo: Marissa Alper for MoMA PS1
The project offers a lens into thriving Queens immigrant communities at a “particularly urgent time,” says Gonzàlez, as gentrification threatens the preservation of these histories and the people at the center of them. In addition to putting their mementos on display, the women participated in a photoshoot across Little Egypt, from its bustling Steinway Street teeming with Egyptian-owned businesses, hookah lounges, and North African eateries and stores, to the Al-Iman Mosque, to the nearby Astoria Park where Arab families have gathered for decades to celebrate birthdays and Eid. Abdelhamid believes the words and images of these twelve women communicate a sense of hope. She says: “I want New Yorkers to see the diversity and the strength of the people who live in this city, and to draw power from it as we continue to try and make the city a better place for everyone regardless of where they come from.” Malikah, MoMA PS1, New York, From May 5 through October 9
