Witness: Eight Instruments of Distortion

Witness: Eight Instruments of Distortion explores how facial recognition, biometric surveillance, and state-led systems of misrecognition have shaped the lived experience of Muslim communities in the United States, particularly in the post-9/11 era. The work reflects on seven major surveillance programs and policies, transforming them into physical vessels that distort, obscure, and reflect the viewer’s gaze—each crafted through computational design and rooted in Islamic geometric pattern.

The proposed exhibition furthers my artistic goals by continuing to develop a body of work that examines the intersection of digital fabrication, cultural memory, and social justice. It allows us to explore ornament not only as a visual language, but as a spatial and political tool—one that protects, encrypts, and resists. The project builds on our interest in architectural poché and contemporary craft to articulate how space, geometry, and material can hold stories of absence, displacement, and resistance.

This exhibition offers an opportunity to create a constellation of sculptural forms that act as both devices and monuments—tools for confronting systems of visibility while offering a sanctuary for opacity. By inviting viewers to witness, misrecognize, and reflect, Witness enacts the kind of speculative and critical spatial practice at the core of my work.