Sarah Farahat: a fierce protection of pleasure and dreaming

PPSTMM is overjoyed to share with you an installation and series of new works under the title, a fierce protection of pleasure and dreaming, from Sarah Farahat. Join us June 21, from 6:00 – 8:00pm to celebrate the occasion.

This exhibition highlights an aspect of Sarah Farahat’s creative activities not often made public, those image experiments, iterations, and actions that unfold in the haven of a studio for the pleasure of making. The prints and collages drawn together for a fierce protection of pleasure and dreaming have all been created in the last twelve months, yet some of the photographs were taken years ago. The materials are sourced in backyard Pacific Northwest gardens and wanders far from home.  The works hinge upon multi-focus layers of texture, flora, and fauna, and range in presence from the cacophonous to the contemplative. The images come into being instinctively, if not quickly, as flat sculptures before their final phase of capture renders them whole, furnishing glimpses of alternate metaphysics and recipes for the mind; curing hangovers realized in the uncanny valley.  With a fierce protection of pleasure and dreaming, Farhat also transferred the ethos of the studio works into a wall scaled collaged installation. 

In July a conversation will take place between Sarah Farahat and the artist and poet Morgan Ritter that will dive into the substance of productive and nonproductive play within and outside of the studio, for the sustaining of life. This dialog is supported by The Ford Family Foundation’s Visual Arts Program series Critical Conversations. 

Sarah Farahat is a transdisciplinary Egyptian American* artist, cultural worker, teacher and abolitionist dreaming of a more collective future for all beings. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Occidental College, a B.F.A. in Intermedia Studies from PNCA and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts. She trained in auricular acupuncture at the historic Lincoln Recovery Center in the Bronx and on the coattails of the Arab “spring” she participated in Beirut’s Homeworkspace program. She teaches art at local colleges, for kids in her community, and is a member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. For the past sixteen years Farahat has monitored the body within the socio-political landscape in the US and abroad-intervening with works exploring grief, connection, assimilation, storytelling and engagement. Participating in grassroots movement building informs her work. She finds joy in reading speculative fiction, talking with plants, cooking, and dj-ing. Her work lives in protests, archives, public and digital spaces and is in the permanent collections of JustSeeds Collective, the Arab American National Museum, Charles Voorhies Library, The Palestine Poster Project and The Center for the Study of Political Graphics.  She is featured in publications including Art Forum, The Oregonian, L’Orient Le Jour, & The Daily Star. As nomadic child of diaspora, Farahat plants portals through taste, smell, and sound while continually attempting to live in reciprocity with the land wherever she creates home. She is a co-founder of the SWANA Rose Culture and Community Center.

*she grapples with an appropriate way to name her location amidst the ongoing legacies of harm to land and people by colonialist projects

Morgan Ritter is a Jewish artist, poet and new mother whose intermedia practice is driven by dreaming and play, yet responsive and, at times, critical to cultural realities. Her work has been exhibited at Artists Space (NY), Shanaynay (Paris), PICA, The Whitney Biennial 2017 (NY), a light bulb store, an orchard, MoMA (NY), and many other conventional and less conventional venues for experiencing art. She is the recipient of grants from Oregon Arts Commission and Foundation for Contemporary Art, among others. Ritter has attended several residencies including Anderson Ranch and Ken Kesey’s Farm. Her work has been featured in ArtForum, Art Practical, Art Viewer, e-flux, W, and Vice.