by Khytul Abyad
I made this work thinking about the gardens in my town – the ones I grew up around, played in, was warned about, or only heard stories of. Some of these are part of my memories – others are imagined, remembered strangely, or told to me in passing. Each garden holds a different story, and each story takes a different form, the same way that memory does.
Linked to the map are these stories, told through fiction, nonfiction, songs, and animations. I wasn’t trying to be exact, but to trace the feeling of these places, and what they’ve meant to me over time. This work is a contemplation on my childhood, like walking back through those gardens, with all the remembering and forgetting that comes with it.
Acknowledgements
Khytul Ahmar
Moakshaa Vohra
About the Artist
Khytul Abyad (b. 1994, Kashmir) is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. Her work explores personal history, identity, and memory through writing, comics, and installation. Drawing from her experience growing up in militarized Kashmir, she blends the poetic and political, using storytelling and materials to reflect on life in a conflict zone. She often draws on Kashmiri folklore and oral traditions. Khytul holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received the New Artist Society Scholarship. She has also been awarded the Abdul Ahad Guru Fellowship and attended the Ox-Bow School of Art on a full scholarship.