Mihrab: Portraits of Arab American Women – 2016–2025 

Wide gallery view showing two immersive environments: a blue‑and‑yellow dome structure with arched panels and a pink arched installation with patterned surfaces
Mihrab: Portraits of Arab American Women – General view, Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2025. Mixed media installation.
This evolving installation project comprises four immersive environments shaped through interviews with Minnesotan women of Arab origin. Each work translates one woman’s lived story into architectural space through pattern, color, and symbolic objects. Together, the installations draw on the mihrab—the prayer niche that orients worshippers toward Mecca—as a symbolic compass guiding the viewer toward each woman’s identity, memory, and resilience.
Back view of a textile structure with three arched panels in blue, yellow, and green; central panel features a portrait of a woman in hijab with raised hands, flanked by a stylized garment and a dark arched doorway with patterned interior
Living Threads, back view – 2025 – Installation – 16 × 11.5 × 12.5 ft – Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Interior view of a textile installation with a domed ceiling, patterned walls, and arched entrance; a purple fabric screen‑printed with gold and green lies beside a low table holding a coffee set; green foliage drapes from the walls
Morning of Damascus – 2025 – Installation – 8 × 10 × 12.5 ft – Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Pink arched structure with gold and green decorative motifs; inside, a painted girl in a teal dress holding books and a backpack; patterned fabric panels drape the sides; a pink patterned fabric printed with geometric designs
My Pink House – 2025 – Installation – 8 × 10 × 11.5 ft – Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Layered blue archways patterned with Islamic geometric designs form a tunnel leading to a central painting of two figures in yellow and purple, set in a gallery with wood flooring and recessed lighting
Blue Roots – 2025 – Installation – 8 × 12 × 12 ft – Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Exhibition History

• January 2016 — Mihrab: Hermitage, Concordia University–St. Paul ( Morning of Damascus, My Pink House, and Blue Roots)
• August 2016 — Expanded presentation, Cyrus M. Running Gallery, Concordia College, Moorhead
• 2018 — Mihrab: Portrait of Arab American Women, Arab American National Museum, Dearborn (finalized trio)
​• 2025 — Full four‑installation presentation including Living Threads, Minneapolis Institute of Art
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Three textile rectangular installations in pink, gold and purple, and blue arranged in a gallery; each has an arched façade and patterned surfaces, and the blue installation includes a central portrait
Mihrab: Portrait of Arab American Women, general view – 2018 – Installation – Arab American National Museum.

Concept and Theme

The Arabic word mihrab refers to the most ornate niche in a mosque—a sacred compass that orients the body and spirit toward Mecca. This project extends that concept into a metaphor that orients viewers toward the identities and memories of the women whose stories shape the work. Grounded in an Islamic visual and cultural framework, it engages feminist discourse in ways that resonate within Muslim communities while challenging reductive assumptions among broader audiences and disrupting long-standing stereotypes that cast Arab American women as submissive or subordinate.
Across the project, the visual vocabulary draws on Islamic architecture, domestic ritual, and women’s textile traditions. Each installation emerges from in-depth conversations with one woman, allowing her narrative to guide the architecture, palette, and symbolic language of the space. Arches, columns, domes, and prayer rugs recur as motifs, while materials such as screen-printed glassine, printed insulation board, fabric panels, and blacklight-reactive paint create environments that feel both intimate and monumental. Themes of spirituality, migration, cultural continuity, and feminine power weave through the series.
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