MARK OF MY DEPARTURE

All work on my profile is orbiting this piece right here

These are the opening liner notes for MOMD. There are two images. They both share the same style; a black roti-textured background with bright pink text. On the first image, the text cascades down and reads ‘mark of my departure’ with each word in a different font. In the middle, across the cascade are the letters MOMD emblazoned large.

The second image has the same large MOMD across the middle. Above it is the track list. Which reads as follows:

mark one: water
mark two: melanogenesis
mark three: in the bazaar
mark four: ilford lane
mark five: be you

Underneath is a body of text that reads as follows:

MOMD produced, arranged and entirely composed by Allah SWT

features include Nusrat and company, the Chapparrals, whoever recorded that tabla loop, some random heads, Mufti Menk and that hilarious kid, Hamza Mohammed Beg and everyone who has ever interacted with us.

In the name of Allah the gracious and the merciful

I am greeted at the archway of my own work, stepping into it for the first time, hearing my voice drowned in the divine. All voices are dripping with it.

MOMD is a parting letter but I do not know to whom nor do I know where I am leaving to.

Those whom you guide none can misguide and those whom you misguide none can guide.

All of my research, writing and creative work for this program is trying to understand and expand on this that tumbled out of me >>>>>

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Intro

Hey, I’m Hamza welcome to my studio. I’m a self-taught multimedia artist and researcher. I’m an able-bodied male-conditioned, postcolonial person. My work is informed by continuous conversations with the people I love as much as any reading, listening and observing.

I’m using this residency to resume an investigation I started some time ago (before getting distracted by another project). Mark of My Departure (MOMD) is preoccupied with the South Asian diasporic experience. The centerpiece of the work is a 7 minute visual collage set to an original composition.

I will use the time afforded to me in the residency to continue the collection and tessellation of related postcolonial images and ideas. I am aiming to produce a supporting body of work so that the video is held within an expanded context.

When you step into my studio, you should smell my aunties homemade garam masala slowly infusing into fried onions on the stovetop. Poke around the work you find and if you have any questions or comments do not hesitate to leave them in the comments section.

Sending love,

Hamza

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since we here no innocence

continuing to sketch > < continuing to sketch

visible roots left in the ground > < follow up for the tree

tabla tabla strings and vocals >

a call to recent studies >

video description: set to another Lollywood classic, this short clip splits the screen into two separate panels. Each one follows the camera movement from dead roots laid in the grass upward to a living tree and then up again to the blue sky – the movement is from grey decay to lush green and blue life. As the intro to the song finishes and the first vocal is about to drop in, the image pauses for a brief moment…two tabla-like images appear side to side. Both are rotating circles with an inner circle of a blackened wood texture, made to appear like the syahi, the central point of the tabla skin. Both rotating circles give the sense of vinyl records being played, with the outer ring on both circles featuring two distinct family images. One is of my two grandfathers sternly sizing each other up. The other is of my grandmother and her best friend sizing up the camera. As the song continues and fades out, the images are taken away by a burning line across the screen.

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i can flow with the feeling of the water

this work is a quick sketch >

it’s a rough work based on recent research >

< it also uses previous studies

the footage is taken from one mountain spring in the Harz >

suddenly any place where the water flows is a place I can imbibe with a sense of home/belonging >

bodies of water as liminal spots of belonging >

this work draws its title from lyrics in Mark of my Departure >

it is meant tobe funny >

video description: set to a classic Lollywood tune this video juxtaposes different images of flowing water in different shaped frames. The frames are sometimes overlapping, sometimes slowly elongating and are synchronised to reflect moments in the musical journey. The water is flowing from a small stream across grey-brown rocks flanked by some greenery and soft moss. The water is clear and the flow is strong.

As the beat drops and the tabla comes into full swing, two circular images are seen rotating on the screen. The two images are in the same style and both created in the same way. On the left is an image of my grandfather, reading a newspaper, looking away from the camera. His image is framed by a circular photograph of a chopped tree trunk. Using the same method, the image on the right has the chopped tree trunk frame with an image of my father and his brothers in it, all sporting the wild 1970s style of facial and head hair. The two images rotate continuously in the style of old vinyl before slowly fading out.

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the tabla and dislocation pt. 3

more studies in chopping the tabla

An old circular photograph shows two stern, old brown men, in their 50s, both wearing glasses sizing each other up. Both are suited looking smart and they are both grandfathers of the artist. Obscuring the centre of the image is a perfect circle. It is filled with the texture of a chopped tree trunk but blackened to approximate the Syahi, the centerpoint of the tabla.

these are my two grandfathers surveying each other

This circular photograph contains the image of two 'almost smiling' women, looking softly at the camera with a lightness but strength of purpose. It is the artists grandmother and her best friend. Obscuring the center of the image is a circle filled with the texture of a chopped texture but blackened to approximate the Syahi, the centerpoint of the tabla.

my grandmother and her best friend

MADE THE SYAHI

Using the image of the chopped down tree stumps, I fashioned the syahi for these tabla’d images, making the symbol of dislocation the central point of attention. Reversing the process from the previous studies, trying to be more direct in the tabla reference and combing through the family pictures. This process has reminded me that so much of this work is about building an archive for/of the family that reconnects the ancestral lineage severed by dislocation.

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the tabla and dislocation pt. 2

studies in chopping up the tabla

The top face of a tree stump is photographed from above. At its centre is a perfectly round image of my grandfather reading a newspaper. The round image has its own outer ring of a separate darker brown trunk.

A perfectly round image of my grandfather with a ringed frame of a chopped tree trunk. This image is taken from the previous image and made larger to expose some details. These include the wooden wall of his house, the newspaper he is engrossed in and the sepia tint of his spectacles.

Another tree stump holds another perfectly round family photo. This tree stump has greying-green moss at its sides and a little on its cut trunk. The image at the centre is of my father and his three brothers. Their image is framed by another chopped tree trunk that is brighter and more yellow in colour.

A perfectly round image of my father and his brothers with a ringed frame of a chopped tree trunk. This image is taken from the previous image and made larger to expose some details. These include the wicked afro of my uncle, the fullness of three Pakistani moustaches and the intimacy of their holding each other.

studies in chopping up the tabla

these studies are produced by pushing family photos into images of chopped trees < these trees are located in the Harz Mountains in Germany where the bark beetle has destroyed local forests < amongst the decay and disease wild flowers and grasses < growback >

< the bark beetle is a kind of predatory invader to the forest < “nature” has its own forms of violent destruction < reoccupation of habitat < re-inscription of its role < colonialism >

< normally a tree would be able to ward off the beetle by producing its own resin < but increased heat and drought have weakened this defense < many trees are dying < many trees are being chopped down < chopping >

< roots in the ground remain as the wood is chopped and moved elsewhere> < chopping >

< the stump is a sign of this dislocation < a mark of my departure >

< the stump becomes the image of the tabla face < except it misses the syahi < the syahi is the blackened tuning paste in the center of the drum < the syahi is the pupil of the eye > < in the iris >

< in the iris < my father and his brothers < my grandfather alone < the generational split that I never knew < their relationship with the looking lens < the brothers facing the eye of the camera < the father lost in his work < neither looking at each other < both brothers and father >

< in my eyes >

< in my eyes < as I walk>

< at the rhythm and pace of a tabla>

< through the dying forest < and mystifying growback >

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MARK OF MY DEPARTURE

All work on my profile is orbiting this piece right here

The second image has the same large MOMD across the middle. Above it is the track list. Which reads as follows:

mark one: water
mark two: melanogenesis
mark three: in the bazaar
mark four: ilford lane
mark five: be you

Underneath is a body of text that reads as follows:

MOMD produced, arranged and entirely composed by Allah SWT

All of my research, writing and creative work for this program is trying to understand and expand on this that tumbled out of me >>>>>

View post >

the tabla and dislocation

…the first musical instrument I remember touching was

[ the tabla in my uncle’s home ]

this pair of beating eyes, bringing life
the touch of taut skin
flitting
flatting
frequencies
skimming
skipping
sentences of sound
there is no more desperate path out
                                                                                                     _{(of dislocation out)}
than my divine desire to crop my fingers
fold them into pegs
to fling and to follow
to play play play

Un-tabla’d as I am, I dedicate my sound to learning about the music in me that already knows the rhythm of the tabla. This is the first section of Mark of My Departure. Speaking over the tabla loop here felt liberating. The image of the tabla is currently in my mind and everywhere around me all the time.

if you got the rhythm I can go with precision
i can flow with the feeling of the water
i can drop unexpected, drop like the t’s in the native speech it’s sorta
sorta slick with these thick lips flip syllables to spit am from L D N
but you can find me in the kiez by canal in the sun, in the rain, in the hail my friend
all praise due
all praise due
all praise due Allah
if i wanna manifest a blessing, my head be pressing the musallah

this language I hate it the colonisers tongue – not very fun
this language I love it, it’s the only one – well I guess that’s done

i can flow with the feeling of the water
cut through the border
what you gonna do with this bricks and mortar when the sea-levels rise
hoarder
that’s me though too much stuff
who come rough round the edges and bluffs
i can float in the cushioning clouds, pushing them bounds
kush and a crown

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Hamza MOHAMMED Beg

MARK OF MY DEPARTURE

Intro

since we here no innocence

i can flow with the feeling of the water

the tabla and dislocation pt. 3

the tabla and dislocation pt. 2

MARK OF MY DEPARTURE

the tabla and dislocation

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