We exist.
Tasneem is a producer, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, newly based in Toronto, with East African and South Asian roots. Their recent album “Just Before the World Ends” captures a sense of raw punk authenticity with a third-culture-kid spin. We talked about Tasneem’s experience growing up in Oklahoma in a Muslim immigrant family, the influences and inspirations that have shaped their music, a story about dates, Palestine, and Portugal, and more!
Image: “Lovers in the Times of Revolution”
Omar Sfeir is a Beirut-based photographer and filmmaker. His work documents human intimacy as a means of questioning social norms. His photographic journeys tell the stories of non-conformists in the context of their respective societies, inspired by the taboos of sexual expression in the MENA region, especially towards the LGBT community.
We discussed his recent photography projects, which represent the Lebanese Revolution, the Beirut explosion, and the COVID-19 crisis through visual symbolism, and his new documentary “Album,” which follows the relationships between three queer Lebanese individuals (including himself) with their mothers.
We also talked about the different ways that Arab and US cultures regulate emotional expression, and how we’ve been releasing our repressed emotions (whether by making art or by crying/screaming in our apartments).
