Bmalké, Have You Seen Port-au-Prince? (2020)

Embraced by the Haitian sun. Fed by the Syrian cuisine of my grandparents. 

Floating in-between homelands. In between-water. Between Haiti and Syria. 

Not Haitian enough. 

Not Syrian enough. 

Because of Syria, he is Haitian. Because of Haiti, he is Syrian. 

I am not Haitian enough. 

I am not Syrian enough. 

I am in-between.

Floating.

Bmalké, Have You Seen Port-au-Prince? is a film that is looking at my identity as a queer Haitian-Syrian. Through the lens of family history and memory; immigration; confronting my and my mother’s an in-between, fluid sense of being; textile and fabric as a tie to cultural visual identity and my grandmother’s art-making practice; personal and family happenings in both Haiti and Syria; physical landscape of both countries; and language, I am looking at how my family's journey in the world created the identity I bear— an identity that is in-between, ever-evolving, fluid, and what I call “floating.” I am not Haitian enough. I am not Syrian enough. However, as I look at the documentation of identity through Bmalké, Have You Seen Port-au-Prince?, I see the formation of a new identity. I see the shedding of origin while still honoring it. I see my new land, my new home: the in-between— and even shedding the in-between to travel beyond it. 

Please find the translation of the narration here.

Site-specific installation of Bmalké, Have You Seen Port-au-Prince? at RESIGHT, a group show at El Rincón Social in Houston, Texas, during Fotofest in March 2020.