Baba Short Film (Final Project)

Instead of the original idea to produce a short documentary on cycling in Jersey City, I decided to shift my focus to another topic. The current project will still be in form of a video but will intersect different topics to create comprehensive connections between different types of socially engaged topics. The course of the video will be taken through POV shots on a go pro with possible inclusion of phone camera footage and collages of other media footage. Through this adventure themed video, I will make parallels between art pieces I have been working on through the semester to the inspirations and concerns of these pieces that I have recently come to experience in my everyday activities. Since I am an active commuter on my bike, it made sense to essentially record a bike ride that will overlay a plethora of experiences that are analogous to each other.

After a prolonged amount of time, I have finally decided to create a project entering the discourse about Immigration. For the course of the semester, I have dedicated most of my time learning new techniques and applying my skills to explore the relationship I have with my father, and how he has adapted to different environments throughout his life. My short film combines my bike ride footage which also features my artwork with an interview of my dad, his journey's are paralleled with my short bike ride from Bayonne to Jersey City, two places my family has inhabited for years.

This is a pot I made in my ceramics class, it includes a poem written by my father that I will place below. There are also ostrich eggs that continue all around, ostrich eggs are a sign of protection as they will never leave they're eggs until they hatch. In Coptic Orthodox Churches, there is one hanging at the alter, to symbolize Gods omnipresence as well as a reminder that he is all watching over. I paired this poem to create a tension between what the ostrich eggs symbolize and this profound presence of death. 

Where are you death and why are they afraid of you.

You, death, rest for a cancer patient.

You, death, are for poor and poor.

You, death is a comfort to whoever lost his wife or lost her husband.

You, death is a comfort to whoever lost his wife or lost her husband.

You, death, are a comfort to myself.

You death is a comfort to a family who can't live without being told.

You, death rest for Ashland

You, death, comfort famine.

You, death, rest from the horrors of disasters.

You death, rest from the noise of the worlds.

You death, rest from conscience.

You, death, rest from the noise of the world. 

You death is a relief from insulting others.

You, death, rest for every tired.

You, death, who moved us from an arrogant, arrogant, arrogant world.

You,death, is a comfort of intolerance.

You, death, have betrayed other. 

You, death are a comfort killing.

You, death, are a comfort from carrying a weapon.

You, death, the rest of the living.

You, death, rest from the fear of tomorrow.

You death rest of afflictions.

You, death, rest of the hypocrites.

You, death, comfort from demons.

You, death, rest from the injustice of presidents and kings.

You, death break from bread lines.

You, death rest of the stench.

You, death, rest from the farewell of love ones.

You death, mercey from God.

You, death, who takes us to God, where there is eternal rest

Why are they afraid of you?

by Karam Boules

Baba

This is a photograph I took on a 35 mm film camera of my father in his auto shop. I wanted to show my father in his work space: car garages, gas stations and auto shops have been a natural landscape for me ever since I was a kid visiting my father a work. I have taken another role of film following my father around through his everyday activities, discovering little deli shops where he goes that are also run by immigrants along with hanging out with some of his friends who have their own stories. 

Through my film, I wanted to focus on my fathers story of himself as young man in Egypt and his memories immigrating to the United States.  Many times I have listened to other deeply moving immigrant stories but never from my own family. I've asked my father before about his immigration story, however he never really told me all the details. As viewers will hear about his journey for the first time, it was also my first time getting a glimpse of what it was like to come to the U.S from Egypt.My interest in my fathers story stems from my identity in America along with his and how our family dynamic and relationships revolve around those identities.

This painting is the last piece to the series of work, because it is uncompleted I did not include it in the video. Once I finish it, the painting will be another addition to my short film.