Branded (2024)

UV print on aluminum composite panel
30 x 440cm (as installed) – 14.5 ft
(6 panels at 30x30cm and 3 panels at 30x60cm with 10cm spacing between each)

Branded is based on an early 2002 work entitled, Muslim T-Shirts Project. This particular project – from when I was a third-year art student – marked not only a moment of reckoning in my life, but also a shift in my thinking that would ignite the direction of my work going forward, focused on how meaning is constructed and reinforced through image-making, dissemination, and repetition.

The original 2002 version consisted of Photoshopping the word “Muslim” onto found images of strangers on the internet. The work remained as individual jpeg files. Branded, reinterprets the individual files as an installation piece and incorporates my artist statement and reflections on the events that transpired the project. Further, the visual installation and formatting of the squares and rectangles intentionally references the Morse Code distress signal.