A Worthwhile Conversation with Karimah Hassan
Photo credit: Karimah Hassan
Karimah Hassan is a multi-disciplined artist and author born in Wales and is of Yemeni and Bangladeshi heritage. Karimah graduated with a MA in Architecture from the Royal College of Art, London, and from the Mural Career Development programme, Toronto. Her clients include The Barbican, Ted Baker, Arts Council England, The Highline New York, Toronto Arts Council, and Crxss Platfxrms. She is known for her live paintings at performance events across London and New York in order to highlight the importance of communities in the city. Karimah’s artwork has been exhibited in both solo and group shows internationally, in such art spaces and galleries as the Copeland Gallery, London (UK), Kiosk N1C, and elsewhere. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Sarabande Foundation, London. I had the honor and pleasure of asking Karimah about what she would suggest to someone who has always wanted to be an artist, what does she want her art to say, and her art project, The Strangers Yearbook, and so much more.
UZOMAH: How do you use mathematical aspects when creating art in public spaces?
KARIMAH: I guess practically I use aspects such as elevations and drawing out measurements and playing with scales of proportions from my training in architecture. I always know that, for example, a doorway is 1.8 meters and a person, sorry, a person's 1.8, and a doorway is like two. So I can always like play around with making things feel eerily bigger or smaller. I also use mathematical aspects in terms of again, practically, in terms of like kinds of bricks, if I need to know how big and why the innovation needs to be. It helps me to break down a painting so I can draw it on my, like on my laptop or something, knowing the scale that needs to be. It goes deeper in terms of something that I'm learning, and understanding is the more sacredness of mathematics as well. So sacred geometry and Fibonacci series and, and how that natural mathematical ratio occurs in people and humans and nature. And maybe that's something I can play with in the future.
U: How do you engage in a creative process that allows you to be limitless?
K: I love that word limitless because, I feel like my purpose is the same as a whole, the whole of humanity's purpose, which is to become more of limitless selves. Um, and I know that when I gave myself the license and the allowance in 2018 to follow some kind of inner calling to follow creativity,
Seemed to flow, and it felt limitless, and there was a sense of wonder that I saw the world and that I try and see the world in now, but it's easy to become disillusioned by life and think that, you know, all the answers, what you want life to go as it is when you do that, your options become limited because you only see through the filter of your own world. And so I guess in terms of your creative process of being limitless, that all refers to the practices that I do to try and engage in my highest self, and remind myself of something greater than me. So I meditate daily. I pray daily. I read about the cosmos and the world and psychology in the brain and follow trends and try to understand the way the world is going. I'm inspired by futurists and by wise souls. Um, and there that's all the creative process. I think the thing that I try and tell myself is that the painting or the project is one part of the life that I want to build. But the main thing is the art main art is how I live my life. And so that creative process is about honoring those innate decisions.
Photo credit: Sarabande
U: What do you want your art to say?
K: Yeah. What do you want your art to say? Aye. my art, Well, my art to say, and this is a loaded statement, and I'm not there, but the goal I work towards, I would like my art to say, this is what human, this is the joy and the healing and the capacity for connection that human can achieve. This is one fragment of what it means to exist in the world as an alive human being. Yeah. As I said, I'm not mad, but that's to me. And I say that because that is a goal I can work towards. It feels sustainable. So if I was to say, I want my art to say, you know, I'm passionate about like racial issues. If I wanted it to be just about that, or just about religion or just about Islam or just about the topics of the world right now, I could burn out in that space, and that's not sustainable because that mission will be fueled by fear. Whereas if I have a mission that's fueled and it sounds cliche, but if I have a mission that's fueled by joy or love, then that is a sustainable path. Um, and that's the direction I wanted to try and take my career in.
Photo credit Karimah Hassan
U: Your art brings gallery-type pieces to the public. How does bringing museum and gallery quality like art make art more accessible to those who would not feel they can take in such art? How important is that?
K: So I'm going to answer your last question. First. I feel it's important that we can encourage understanding of art of all levels because art is a reflection of the human experience and the human mind and human psychology. And so if we can embrace multiple, realities of art, we can embrace, therefore, multiple human existences. And isn't that what we all want. That's basically advocating for peace, um, and to lead on from that, how does bringing museum and gallery quality art make art more accessible? Well, yes, whilst the art piece itself encompasses the human condition, the museum, and the gallery is not such a pure space of human conditions in the sense that it's loaded with institutionalized, like systems of power.
And there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy that goes into seeing what Peters are being seen and the conversations that had in those spaces in a way that a city democratizes our existence in a city, we have millionaires and paupers walking in the street together in the city. You have overlapping of identities in a way that institutions wouldn't. And so by taking the same product, quote-unquote product, or the same art piece and putting it into a space where those people coexist, it's like saying, we all have an opinion here, and we all are allowed to be around this thing that has a conversation around it. And in the same way, when you go into holy space and you take off your shoes, right. And as a way to like humble yourself and to, so that w we all have a similar grinding into which we come to that space because it's not quite possible right now to do that in a gallery institution to then take those sacred things and bring them into the street. It, it was and the one on the engaged conversation, but on the other thing, what I really like about it is that, if you take, you know, if you take a John singer Sargent painting and you blow it up and put it on a billboard, all of a sudden that value is questioned. And so, by bringing the idea of context brings in the idea of what value is, and it questions, a lot of these interesting, loaded topics that I think are really interesting.
U: How has your background in architecture helped you develop art pieces in public spaces such as buildings?
K: Okay. So I think it's done a few things. I think my background in architecture has instilled in me an idea of responsibility for the city that I'm in. And then I did have empowerment of the city that I'm in, that I can make a change in the city, and that's, the cities are as much right to the public as they are to the, to the people that put in the rules and regulations of cities. So the first time that gave me the confidence and the audacity to think that my opinion, my expression is okay to exist on a larger scale in the city. And at the same time, I think my background architecture helped me, like I said earlier, practically to, to have the skills, the understanding, to know how to draw elevations and how to scale up pieces and how to use color and spatial mapping. There are some really great architects, for example, assemble the, you know, the public works that do work in the city in architecture, which is like a public art, almost an intervention. And I think that gave me a sensitivity for like this bridge between sculpture and art as like a space for investigation.
Photo credit: Karimah Hassan
U: What has been the most inspiring and rewarding part of starting The Strangers Yearbook?
K: Today I'm going to pick up the book that I've designed, and I think that's going to be pretty emotional because I think I worked; it was quite a last-minute thing to do the book for the exhibition. And I think I was so focused on doing it that I forgot this is going to be like a physical souvenir of the hardware that I've put in and the stories that have gone into this. So I think when I hold the book, that's going to be a rewarding part, but I know there are many times whilst I was painting the stoners yearbook pictures that I opened my Instagram, and we listened to a voice note or would read a message and it really brought me to tears, or I saw someone's selfie, and I just connected to it. And again, I was just overwhelmed. And I think that was really rewarding because there's a surprise element in that, which I didn't expect, which is that I didn't expect people to talk about personal matters of abortion or like coming out or such personal things. And that was really rewarding because it was a reminder, and it continues to be a reminder that Art can really be a tool to connect and to create change. And that change actually doesn't always exist in like big levels, but change can be something small as in opening up and being vulnerable to a stranger. That was really inspiring.
Photo credit: Karimah Hassan
U: What would suggest to someone who has always wanted to be an artist or create art to get their start?
K: What would, what would I suggest as someone who, what would I suggest to someone who has always wanted to be an artist or create art to get their start? I don't know. You know, because I read that question thinking about what would I tell myself two years ago who loved art always was curious about always loved paint and could not see it past being a hobby.
And I don't think I would say anything. I think we can't, I think I would just try and be and let that person be around me. And maybe around the person just live as an example, because I think the things I would say will just all sound cliche and I wouldn't listen. I think that so much about following the artist path sounds either like the starving artists, romanticism, or cliche of following your passion, your purpose, and your dreams. And there's so much more about it that goes into it about working on yourself and, and, and doing business things and, and practicing. And I think all of that stuff, like all the words, have been written, right? Like it's all been there. But the thing that I needed to see was permission to do it and to see someone who looked like me doing it, and to see someone who didn't know those worlds and didn't understand those worlds and could practice their faith and their religion in those worlds. And that's what would have helped me. I remember when I went to the T, and there's like one Arab artist in the whole of the tape, and I remember just seeing the person's name and thinking, oh, wow, they've got an Arab name. And that one person in the whole of the tape modern. But it, just to me, that one person to think, oh yeah, there's someone there. Cause I knew, I could tell the skills to paint, but I just didn't know that it was an option.
So I potentially, maybe I would suggest, try and find people who were doing the thing that you want to become like, and that's, it don't have to follow it. You don't have to do, I think, but just try and find the people. Cause I think once you, once you can find the people when it takes the smoke and mirrors away a little bit.
Photo credit: Karimah Hassan
U: Is your art a part of you or are you a part of your art?
K: So I'm in my studio right now, and I'm looking at the paintings, and I'm thinking, are you a part of me or my part of you? Um, and it's definitely a paradoxical both.
So actually, no, I think the life of an artist is, um, part of me. And I think the art piece, I am a part of it. I think the art piece, it flows through me, and it was born into the world, and then it doesn't belong to me actually. And I can give it away. I can sell it, it can be taken and put, put somewhere else. And I'm a part of it. And it doesn't embody everything that I am. And so I might be a great person or, or, or bad quote-unquote, bad person. But that doesn't mean that a piece of art is good or bad. It exists in itself in a way, but the life of the artist and that path is 100% part of me.
U: What is the best thing about being an artist?
K: The best thing by being an artist is to listen to your soul's desire as cliche as that sounds, that was my soul's desire. To not feel like, I dunno, I think being an artist, it can take you to really interesting spaces that you can't imagine because it's such a vague and ambiguous term that it can encompass so many things. And I think to live, therefore to be an artist is to live a life of if you want it, you can live a life of surprise, curiosity, wonder, and joy that is such a blessing.
Photo credit: Wheres the frame
U: What was the last book you read?
K: And that's why I said, I really want to try and live the life of an artist because a life of joy and curiosity and vitality is like an amazing thing to aspire towards the last book I read, three cause one's long, the bastard of Istanbul by Alicia.
And then I also was like, especially on reentry, I read a few books at a time. So the novel was yeah. The Bassett of Istanbul by Alicia. And then I would have a bit something bit heavy when I wanted to learn, which has Carl Sagan, the cosmos, and then something just to take on like sort of trips or just putting my coat pocket was Victor. Frankel's a search for meaning man's search for meaning. Yeah. I hope this was not too long, crazy deep blight, whatever, but yeah. Thank you for like really interesting questions. And for giving me the space to like, think about these things.
To hear the audio of the conversation please click below.
