An Authentic Hybrid

Windows provide stories. Their frames are not solely enclosures but observation points for invisible things. Karma Hamed researched shop windows in Utrecht and Paris that resonate with an Arab identity. Two common diasporic features prevailed. Firstly, signage in multiple languages that don’t all translate the same information as they all refer to a different place as ‘home’. Secondly artefacts that represent ‘home’ and the fantasy of reproducing it. Based on interviews with shop owners and visual research, An Authentic Hybrid explores this invisible imaginary of home. It is articulated through digital tools and physical materials that use transparency, perspective, mirrors and light as nomadic qualities that shape and glitch identity.