Identity, Love, Marriage & the Female Muslim Migrant

I am an FOB*; an International student. My journey begins from a simple middle-class household in Pakistan, and arrives in the midst of the First World cacophony of the Netherlands. This journey has evoked several questions - from the bigger issues of the System crash to the more intimate and human worries of love. While everybody likes splashing their feet in the political ponds, I give my time to the tunnel of love and identity.

I want to open a dialog - an FOB vs an EBCD**. I invite you to share your views with me of your life as a Muslim dual-identity holder. I want to talk about the basic issues of love and marriage in a minority community. What are your challenges and how are they different than mine?


*Fresh Off the Boat
**European Born Confused Desi


IDENTITY, LOVE, MARRIAGE & THE FEMALE MUSLIM MIGRANT.

Venue: Piet Zwart Institute
Mauritsstaart 36,
3012 CJ Rotterdam,
The Netherlands

Date: Saturday, 5 June 2010

Time: 1500 - 1700 hrs

p.s. Please confirm your attendance by e-mail.

Pixel/print

"While Amazon's Kindle is a bestseller in the United States, Europe seems still a bit slow in taking up e-readers. Producers prepare for conquering the European market. The introduction of e-book readers and their eventual effective diffusion will transform the publishing industry. An international conference organized by Florian Cramer from Rotterdam-based Piet Zwart Institute revolves around the future of publishing, paper and the transformation of reading and the book in the digital age. The program is packed with exceedingly interesting presentations by designers, publishing experts, and researchers from the cutting-edge front of media development."
http://www.mtschaefer.net/entry/printpixel/

Quite a two-day conference I must admit, and an interesting divide of presentations over the past 48 hours. The first day full of e-reading utilities, e-x, e-y, e-z .. easy? Not to mention how the screen is turning half the world's population blind. I will have to place my interest in the second day, and in Alessandro Ludovico's (of neural.it) talk - paper, paper, paper!
Maybe it's me, but I am sure more artists/designers have this: have you ever felt this obsession with any visual/text/image that you want to HAVE it, HOLD it, HUG it? I have. Yes we all have internet and I can watch my favorite image anytime, it's just a matter of going online and loading it. But it isn't quite satisfying; it's not real enough - it lacks weight, substance and the MATERIAL essence. Aren't we material beings?
I am broke and I feel sad that I can't buy books. Then I download my ever-friendly torrent, and the counter never goes above 1 of me opening that file. I am going blind, the screen hurts my eyes, I want to hold my text and sing lullaby to it.
But getting back to the conference which is about publishing. I, being an artist/designer, felt sweetly excluded. I left the conference questioning, can the Sony e-reader or print-on-demand provide me the pleasure of the romanticism an exclusive art-book lying on a walnut-wood coffee-table definitely can? Or is it the death of romanticism we are compromising? Hmm ... may I remind how we are turning into robots ... I really don't want Ray Kurzweil to be correct ... YET AGAIN!

The Tree

Eendrachtsweg is a beautiful road in Rotterdam, somewhere between the ErasmusMC and the city center. There is some great Dutch architecture alongside the road, lush greenery, and something called a singel: a Dutch word to which I don't know the translation of, but that's what they call these lake/channel-like water features around the country. It's on the way to my school, and today I came about a rather interesting effort. I am not sure how I should define it. Create your own story.
Perhaps it was there all along, and I never noticed it, considering the button-eyes I have :D ... does that term make any sense to English-speakers? It's something my mother used to call me all the time in Urdu. It basically means to have big eyes but still not be able to see things around. And I am rather bad at this. Things right in front of me tend to disappear out of my sight!

Learning to bike, and going around.

Well, since I'm not from China or Thailand or Holland, biking doesn't run in my blood. It's a new deal for me. And when it comes to crossing the Erasmus bridge it is even bigger (not so much now, i've become stronger :D, besides, it's an awesome view.) The Maas tunnel tends to be a wiser option when you're not feeling so athletic, or it's rainy, cold, and windy. But lately the weather has been stupendously gorgeous.



So now that i can bike almost like a pro :D and the weather has been gracious, this needed to be taken advantage of. The clean air pulls you out. I have to admit it wouldn't be easy to bike in Lahore anyways; you'd come home with mutilated lungs and a chronic breathing disorder.
Anyway. This time the selected destination was south of Rotterdam: Waalhaven.
Now this was new to me in contrast to all that I've seen so far. It was very Dubai-esque. Dubai is also an interesting story, lol. Fits perfectly in my struggle to break free :P ... makes it more dramatic.
But yea. It's a new area, I've been told there wasn't much here 3 years ago (port-wise). It was quite surreal to bike through a very mustard/yellow, desert-like landscape with the sun shining bright; the containers piled high creating an urban feel. I can finally take my sunglasses out :D





I remember the first few days in Dubai I was aching to see some green - everything was so yellow(ground, buildings) and blue(water, glass), my eyes were longing for some far-spread, lush greenery. It was there that I realized how important green is for our eyes. But it was a similar feeling I experienced in this port area. It felt great this time - walk through memory lane. It's like you want to hold that moment, and KISS IT! :D