Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates overlapping tensions around religion, gender, and third-culture identity. Her recent work includes immersive installation, fiber etching, and mixed media collage using personal archives and found imagery.
Born in Chicago to Yemeni parents, her upbringing encompassed a complicated relationship with Islam and the patriarchal social norms in their community, and the boundary-pushing icons of 80’s and 90’s Western pop culture.
I fled a pending forced arranged marriage, religious conservatism, and oppressive misogyny. These are not tidy topics to discuss in today’s society. Right-wing media eagerly uses them to incite xenophobia but dialogue that challenges misogyny remains crucial. My current work lives in this terrain.
In her current exhibition “soft powers: A Solo Exhibition by Yasmine Nasser Diaz” on display at the Arab American National Museum, she reflects on coming-of-age nostalgia and Yemeni American girlhood. This exhibition features never before shown fiber etchings and a site-specific installation that is a continuation of her “Teenage Bedroom” series. Diaz addresses subjects familiar to many children of immigrants including code-switching, plural identities and conflicting loyalties.
At that age there was often a feeling of being hyper surveilled and some days for communities there can be a sense of communal obligation to protect young girls who are becoming women but for us as teenagers there was a fine line between protection and control. With this work I wanted to focus on those moments when we were amongst each other and not having to worry about who might be watching.
Although the Museum is currently closed, experience a video preview of the exhibition below, with behind the scenes shots and commentary by Diaz.
To refer to Yasmine a fighter is truly an understatement, as she pushes boundaries, empowers, and paves the way for creative women constrained by convention and eager to overcome social expectations.
Follow and support Yasmine and her amazing work.
Website:www.yasminediaz.com
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/yasmine.diaz