I see Middle Eastern people every day in New York City, yet I feel they are absent in some way. I hardly ever see Arabic script in pamphlets from tourist service kiosks, nor is it present on many menus or billboards. Since ISIS became a considerable force in global politics, as well as in the conflicts between refugees and natives, many are confessing “Islamophobia.” Arabic script on ISIS’s flag, screenshots from Middle Eastern war news; this is leading people to be afraid of Arabic script. I don’t want Arabic to become a synonym for terrorism.

I first had this Arabic pamphlet idea in October 2016. In the beginning I found an English PDF file from the Museum of Modern Art’s website (https://www.moma.org/ momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/visit/MoMA_English.pdf). I sent the script format to a English-Arabic translator on Taobao, paying her for $27 (185RMB). I consulted a graphic designer about the fonts and paper weight of the original English version, and rented Neue Helvetica Arabic on Skyfonts, paying $7.99 for one month’s use. I then copied the original layout but reversed the reading direction to function as Arabic script. The new Arabic pamphlets of 100 copies were secretly put into MoMA’s circulation on December 9, 2016.

Two months later, MoMA made an effort to showcase work by artists from countries on Trump’s banned immigration list. MoMA “affirmed the ideals of welcome and freedom are as vital to this museum, as they are to the United States” (https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/moma-protests-trump-entry-ban-with- work-by-artists-from-muslim-nations.html). However, this act by the institution is a temporary protest. These artworks are the tools for MoMA’s voice. One day, Ibrahim El-Salahi’s mosque will be taken down. It will disappear from audiences’ views again. Is there any long-term plan for MoMA’s stance?

I don’t know exactly how many Arabic speakers visit MoMA every day, as I don’t know how MoMA decided to make pamphlets for current nine languages it offers. I put an Arabic pamphlet in, at least to let people know that a different culture is here, peacefully. 

2016 - ongoing

American Apparel was a popular brand in China, of which the selling point is 100% made in the USA-sweatshop free. I was its fan. The cities print tote bag has been a signature item for this Los Angles factory. The bags appeared in subways, classrooms and bookstores in China as well as USA. All the cities on it are developed capitalism cities in Europe, America and Asia, where American Apparel stores are based. As people from a city neglected by the brand, my carrying these cities’ names with showing to people is like a worship to capitalist richness.

I didn’t know there were such many places attacked by ISIS in the Middle-East and Africa until I saw an ISIS attack map. All I knew was the media reported amount of people commemorated in Paris, in Garland, in London. People overlaid the flag of France on their Facebook profile pictures; lightened candle emojis for Orlando on Twitter. 

I cannot tell an exactly correct answer on nowadays’ relationship between ISIS and USA. People have been doing numerous analyses, speculations and conspiracy theory. One I believe is that ISIS is raised up from Iraq War. They also gained American arms that the US army left in Iraq. To some extent, ISIS is made-in-the-USA.

I changed cities on the bag by all the cities suffered terrorism conducted by ISIS or inspired by ISIS. There are famous capitalism dream cities mixed with lesser known middle east cities. here, they are equal. 

2017

Chinese former premier Wen Jiabao has a poem named Looking Up to the Starry Sky which encourages young people to have dreams:
......I look up to the starry sky,

Finding it so boundless and profound.

Its infinite truth makes me try

Try to seek it and follow by.
......

I used twelve size 2 (240 × 160 cm) Chinese flags, folded the larger stars to the back and formed a milky way (silver river in Chinese) by 48 smaller stars.

The larger star symbolises the Communist Party of China, and the four smaller stars that surround the big star symbolise the four social classes (the working class, the peasantry, the urban petite bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie) of Chinese people mentioned in Mao's "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship". 

The important part to me is I didn’t cut any of them. They can be totally back to normal flags if I “remove stitches”. I made a surgery of what I hope China looks like—smaller government, larger people. I exaggerated the size (make government disappeared). Under the installation you can still see the big stars vaguely through lights.


My mom helped me to sew them. When she started, she cannot help singing while sewing, in which I heard the lyrics was related to Chinese flag (I never heard this song). I started to shoot her sewing hands in her singing:
…… never afraid of the forest of knives and swords

but now my heart is thumping. 

Stitch by stitch, thread by thread

A new world is being born with my sewing hands.

The song “Embroidering A Red Flag” originated from a patriotic opera Sister Jiang. Communist Jiang Zhuyun and her peers in Kuomintang’s jail were imagining five-star red flag with embroider on it when they heard the news that the People's Republic of China is established in October, 1949.

In the new context, the lyrics can be interpreted in a totally different way. “My” heart is thumping because “I” am destructing the Chinese flag’s authority; a new world being born in “my” hands is an unprecedented, anarchist China.