Between a Rock and a Hard Place is a digital installation that evokes the immigrant’s struggle in the search for home and identity, post-migration. In this work, I create Arabic letter fragments inspired by the traditional Kufic font, a prominent Arabic script, established in Kufa, Iraq. As I digitally arrange the fragments, I map out my experience of navigating the narrow limestone fissures at the Limehouse Conservation Area, a natural site near my current home in Ontario. The act of juxtaposing the Arabic script with a parcel of Southern Ontario’s landscape allows me to visualize home. Presented as a projected animation and an augmented reality installation, my notion of home becomes an event that takes place within a specific timeframe – a temporal experience, rather than a static, physical dwelling.

 

​This project was generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Special thanks to Darkonian for creating the animation's original soundtrack. The project site at Limehouse Conservation Area is a part of Halton Region, which is situated on the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, as well as the Traditional Territory of the Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat and Anishinabek. Thank you for sharing your beautiful lands and traditional territory with us.​​​​​​

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​View the 3D model and try it in AR below!​