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During the run of my installation "Silent. Silenced. Silence", I asked gallery goers this question: What Silences You?

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People selected a word to hold and either a black or gold hood, which prevented them from expressing a facial gesture and also from being able to see the faces of onlookers and my face as I took their photo.

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Even without facial expression, you can absorb quite a bit of information about the person behind the hood.

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People chose a pre-written word, or wrote their own word, to answer the question.

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Pre-written word choices referred to the separation of Earth and Sky (Gaia and Uranus) in Greek myth. When Gaia and Uranus separated the concepts of Time, Space, Existential Questions, Movement, Love, Conflict, and Fear of Sons came into existence.

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The myth is somewhat like what happened in the Garden of Eden. Gaia offered her son Cronus a sharp hook that he could use to release himself and his siblings from her confined, crowded belly. With the hook, Cronus cut off his father testicles. In pain and fright, Uranus pulled away from Earth, creating the beginning of consciousness and the vault of Heaven. Thus began the panoply of the Greek gods-- through an act of violence between son and father.

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When Uranus' blood spilled on the ocean's surface, it provided the seed for Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, to arise from the sea's foam.

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I was working in the print shop at Mass Moca. The radio was on. I heard the Speaker of the House tell Senator Elizabeth Warren to shut up and sit down; then the Senate voted to silence her. 

The impact of a woman' being publicly silenced compelled me to drop a black ‘ink’ hood over the faces I was drawing and to contemplate the emotions of being silenced.

Putting a hood over a fellow human's head might bring a feeling of power; of consuming other so that you could be greater than...and it also surfaces anxiety and evil: to know you are forcing a person who has a soul like your own to be a victim.

Silencing taken to the end is a primitive fear we all share.

Can you shut up and be quiet?

Text: Day 9 of 21 Day Experience of Woman in Abaya

Day 4 of 21 Day Experience of Woman in Abaya

Day 15 of 21 Day Experience in Abaya

TED TALK-SAUDI ARABIA "21 Days in Abaya" (in Arabic)

21 Days in Abaya

TED- EX TALK, Riyhadh, Saudi Arabia

Presenter Wafaa al Onazi , June 2, 2019

  الترويج الثقافي وترك آثر فراشة في مكان ما    الترويج الثقافي وترك آثر فراشة في مكان ما

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek-UdbUIrKg&feature=youtu.be