Scroll and Key, 2019
Shown at Yale School of art open studios, new haven, usa.
This work explores the formation of the American nation state and the symbols it has borrowed to assert certain power dynamics in the architecture of authority that surrounds us. The series is based on the Yale Scroll and Key secret society, its “tomb” on campus, and its role in the community as a tax exempt fund. The tomb built in 1870 was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt whose travels journals to the “orient” (SWANA) and Koran purchased as a souvenir on his travels are available to peruse at the Beinecke library, is an example of orientalist motifs used to evoke mystery and mysticism borrowed from South West Asia and North Africa in forms of stars, and islamic geometric patterns adorning the entire building, its windows, and its gate. Here Nasser made imprints and rubbings of the various elements on site in these series of works. Accompanied by a performance/video piece entitled Latex, iron oxide, salt, and ash performed at the Yale School of Art.
Images of artworks by Nabil Harb
Images of performance documented by Kyna Patel