In Censure, the relationship between mother, daughter, and the church is explored through aselection of three specific guidelines for women to follow when they arepresent in the house of God. Each image in this triptych represents a single idiosyncratic rule, as outlined by the Church of the East. These are revealed to girls at a young age through their mothers, or other female elders. What is most intriguing is that the rules of conduct are primarily controlled through cultural and societal pressures, executed by family and fellow community members through glares or gossip, rather than a reiteration of canonical law.

The three aforementioned guidelines are that women must be plain in sight, head covered, and clean. The idea that the menstruant is impure has been debated and abandoned by most Christian sects, but is still upheld in a few churches, particularly in the Church of the East, the Coptic Church, and a few others. My mother is pictured beside me playing her role as the model figure while I, having grown up, am standing in question of these rules that I followed without dissenting at one point in time.

The essence of this piece reflects on the relationships we have with our authority figures and how easily we receive their dictations when we are in our most mouldable stage in life, but later on come to question that which we accepted so willingly.

I’m intrigued and inspired by how diaspora arouses a vehement desire in migrants to preserve their culture. The matches and cigarettes pictured in these photographs are remnants from my grandmother’s last trip to Iraq in the year 2000. Since the US invasion in 2003, she has not returned. To keep the cigarettes fresh, she stores them in the freezer and only takes one out to smoke when she feels most nostalgic for her homeland.

This diptych examines the personal story behind these memorabilia, but reduces them to objectivity. Taken out of their context once as relics in my home, and then again in these photographs, the clinical environment reflects how we are able to keep these mementos alive, while what they represent remains unattainable.