She Who Sees The Unknown

from these stories. You'll hear from artists, scholars, writers, journalists, and Gin exorcists, and even from me as I discuss how and why this series came about in a very personal conversation with my husband. Thanks for listening and enjoy. I am very excited to introduce my guest for you this week and artists like no other that you have ever known. Marchan Alari is an artist, activist, writer, and educator.

She was born and raised in Iran and moved to the US in two thousand and seven, and her work deals with the political and social and cultural contradictions that we face every single day. She's an acclaimed artist, the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, the Sun Dance Institute, New Frontier International Fellowship, and Leading Global Thinkers of two thousand and sixteen award by Foreign

Policy Magazine. Her work has been part of numerous exhibitions, festivals, and workshops around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pompadou Center, Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, the Tape Museum, the Queen's Museum, Powerhouse Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, and so many more. Now, I came across Machine when I was researching female jams, and I came across her incredible project called she Who Sees the Unknown.

And in this project more Sheen uses three D scanning, modeling, and printing to recreate monstrous female and queer figures from Middle Eastern origins. Believe me, this is a conversation you don't want to miss. Thank you so much for joining us, um Moha Shane. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. I have been fascinated with your work ever since I discovered it earlier this year. Hi, thanks so much for having me Rabbia, It's it's an honor. So um you

know I as you know you know. This UH Conversation series is a companion to the ongoing series which will which will have air by the time this this air is UM called the Hidden Gin Podcast, and I drew on a lot of different sources, and one of those sources actually was the exhibit that I've found, and that's how I discovered you called She who Sees the Unknown.

But before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about you say on your website, UM about this exhibit that the Iranian traditions jin are fearsome and honored, and that your upbringing in Iran was full of ancient mythical narratives involving supernatural beings, and your bedtime stories told to you by your grandmother often included gin. So I wanted to ask you if you can tell it a little bit about your upbringing, about your background in Iran, and about the gin lore that you grew

up with. Yes, um So, I started to kind of become interested in general since like three and a half years ago, uh in these figures of monstrous female slash genderless career figures in mythical stories UH that would origin in West Asia or basically Middle Eastern UM ancient stories and UM to kind of um give you a little bit of I guess more summary of also like my practice in relationship to that I. You know, I also have been very interested in this relationship between technology and

history in that sense. So when I was doing this research, UM, I was going through a lot of resources and books and and material UM that would you know include this this also like figure of of Gin within Islamic tradition studies. And so that's when I when I became interested in researching more um into the figure of the Gin. And as you mentioned, it's a figure that I grew up with in Iran. Whenever there were stories that kind of were ghosts, these ghostly stories, et cetera, it would always

involve the figure of the Gin. And so a lot of people who might have grown up in different countries Islamic countries or Realistan countries probably also identify with this that Jen is a figure that we grow up within a lot of our our stories and time stories UM. And at the same time that it's very feared as

a figu you're um, it's also very respected. So people take certain kind of UM caution or like certain kind of UH care in terms of the way they they deal with the digen and the way that you shouldn't interrupt certain spaces or you kind of can use different methods as a way to not not be possessed by by the gin. So, yeah, I'm gonna go on, please.

So for me, the figure of the Gin had this personal relationship that I had with it, but at the same time coming I was also like coming to it from more of like a feminist perspective and feminism studies. And that's something that I guess I can talk more about later. Yeah, So, so I want to talk a little bit about what your perspective on these stories were as you grow up and maybe how that's changed, um with adulthood. I also, you know, I grew up steep

kind of in this this this culture. Although my family nobody totally told stories much, but you know, a couple of Muslim kids get together and that's that was the topic conversation often late at nights. Um, So, when when you were being taught or told these stories where they kind of like lessons that were being told to you, or they told you to entertain or to maybe warn you from certain behaviors, or was it taught to you as something like this is real, Like you gotta take

this seriously. Um. I think it's a combination of a couple of those things. You said, so most of it as I as I. As you also mentioned, it was told by my grandmother who lived with us, and you know,

I had a very close relationship too. And one of the most vivid memories I have is um in a in a summer and evening um almost like night, when the stars were out, and it was me and two of my my cousins who we all lived in the same apartment building, and my grandmother was telling us about her encounter with a gen um at a public bath where she grew up, which is a village in Kurdistan and west of Iran, and she was telling us, you know how it was very common for women who would

go to these public bath houses to encounter gen And one of the things that is also known or like talked about about the gen is that they really like spaces that are dark and humid. So basically, you know, a place like a bath house is like a perfect place for them to come and visit. So for me, it was kind of like as a child, it was a mixture of believing it and doubting it, like did

she really see it? Was it something else she saw that, like she thought it's a gen um, But again like because those stories get like repeated so much within different people's experiences of encountering gen um. It's kind of like becomes almost like an oral narrative of you know, a relationship with this supernatural creature that is there and then certain people encountered in certain or don't. And if you're scared of it, then, as I mentioned earlier, you can

take certain actions um to to avoid it. Were you ever aware and I wasn't aware until adulthood, and I did, you know, my research kind of more deeply into into this whole subject um that ginn or gendered um and that there is a body of you know, folklore around female gin in particular, or at least um people encounter them as female gin. Was that something you were aware of growing up or is that something you also learned as you started doing your research into this project. Absolutely not.

My image of the gin as as this creature was always male. And again this goes back to one of the reasons I became really curious and also interested in this this project that I worked on for for almost

four years. She was sees the unknown um which I wanted to kind of find these female or almost genderless uh stories and figures of of the Gin and also like monstrous figures because UM also growing up in Iran with a lot of mythical and you know, ancient stories that are part of um our daily life but also our you know school and like literature and education. Incredible incredible stories. Yeah, and they're all always very you know,

all these figures are male. So I was wondering, like, where are the female figures are mohere are the figures that are perhaps like more and more queer, more like a non binary in terms of like you know, gender as like these things that you know in English were like very specific about he and she, but in in far Sea, actually there's no he or she for third person, right, So I kind of like wanted to find also that

ambiguity within these these texts and material. And yeah, that's that's how I came across so many female or generalist figures of of Gin that were illustrated in different books and and resources and material that I had no idea about. Can you tell us UM a little bit about the the exhibit again, its titled She who Sees the Unknown? About the kind of um like the medium that you used for this exhibit, I mean it's and I wish

I could. I don't know where is it this being displayed right now, by the way, So it's more of like a project. I mean, it has been exhibited in so many different places, but when you go up to my website she posives you on that time. It's a research based project that has many different components and elements, from performance to these three D printed sculptures that I

recreate from illustrations I find in older material, books, etcetera. Um, to these new texts and narratives that I write about each of these figures that I choose to work with. And then there's an archive aspect of it, and also like a reading room that I have been also working on as part of the project. So um yeah, the project itself again has many many different components um. And then the exhibition in time i've shown it, it has,

you know, taken many many different forms. But within the research I've done, I've come across many many texts and material and an illustrations, but I've chosen to focus on five specific figures, which are Huma, who is a gin who brings fever to human body. Yeah, Judge jug who are these figures that are kind of like monsters gen like that are spoken in the Qoran that represent chaos.

The Laughing Snake, which is uh known as you know, a very like powerful kind of hybrid animal human female human combination that is known as you know, this figure that is very um strong and is going through all these like towns and cities and killing people and eating all the animals, and no one can win a war with her until um someone comes and say the only way to kill her is to hold a mirror in front of her, and when she sees her reflection, she

starts laughing, and she laughs for days and nights until she dies from the laughter um. And then Caboos, which is a gen that is known as a gen that brings nightmare and si proalysis to human body. Um, and then I shap and Disha. She's actually originally a Moroccan gen um that is known to possess men, creating a crack on their body. And the only way to not go insane when you're possessed by her is to participate

with her and listen to her. So I use all these you know, really beautiful complex stories, and then I write new stories about them, and I turned them around. I kind of connect different aspects of you know that their their their power UM into different uh contemporary issues and topics and also kind of these like futuristic alternative reimagination of it's possible and the world. You've coined this term refiguring, which I read about and you said refiguring

is about activation and preservation. Can you talk a little bit about refiguring and UM when you when you think about refiguring, when you go about it is the content because I know, I mean a lot of your work is UM. It has a social political UM aspect to it. UM. I know in this exhibit where to talk about specifically have some I mean, you just turned the story of yah Juj Madjuj on its head for me, UM, but you know a lot of it visibly like um colonization

and imperialism. But also are you also doing refiguring within kind of your own cultural context? UM? Yeah, I mean absolutely. I think the most important aspect of that is the

refiguration of UM. This this this figure of the female monstrous female figure which is known usually as like negative or or mean, which is kind of like you can compare it to you know, the figure of the witch um in in like Western literature and like kind of like cultural productions which has been turned around through like different feminist movements as something that instead of like being considered you know, like this like figure off an old ugly woman, uh, into you know, like a kind of

witchcraft movement, which is like empower empowerment for like women

to turn around that figure. So that's something I'm doing within the cultural context of these um stories and also the figures themselves, which is too you know, especially like I mean, I can give you like an example with let's say, the laughing snake, which I am kind of turning around this idea that her her death because of her laughter is considered a weakness, um, and I'm saying that actually that position that she's taking is a position

of um, you know, empowerment, because she's taking away her reflection from the mirror that is held by these men, as you see in this like old illustrations in two different resources. Um. And kind of then I used that to tell a more contemporary story of growing up in Iran and dealing with sexual harassment and you know, like trying to figure out my body as a woman and thinking about sexual desire and so kind of again trying to like to find ownership of my body as a woman.

But also it's it's an experience that is very collective in terms of like all when growing upment in in Iran can can connect to these stories and these experiences within spirit harassment, but also in a wider again um connection to it. It's it's something that all women can connect to and with in in different levels. So you interpret the laughter, which actually when I first heard about the story, I also kind of did as something that

was empowering. Yes, absolutely, because because you know, the way it's I feel like sometimes it's told is more of you know, she laughs and then she dies and that's the end and they find a way to kill her. But then again for me, she makes the decision had laughter as a respond to what they're doing is like, um, you know, very conscious decision of how to respond to to that reflection that that she's witnessing being held by

these men. Um. Yeah. So and I and again like this idea of refiguration or turning around power structures is something that I became really interested in within this project and how I can't do that through specifically also storytelling and a narrative. UM that has political cultural components to it. Um, I want to talk about boots, I thought, and I've

spent a lot of time on your website. I've watched pretty which all the videos on there, and so the boos are and they're also called al jathoom and they are known to be kind of a race of gin, kind of a category of gin that bring different um sicknesses and trauma and nightmares. And the depiction is can be quite frightening. Um, this gin is it looks like there kind of this hovering above a human being in in some of the illustrations I've seen as a person

sleeps um bringing nightmares to them. But your narration as it relates to this figure was um just really I mean it was kind of um, I don't know, I I it really did bring me to tears because your narration is about the story of your birth and the story of you waiting for your mother as a child to land every time she flew. So could you tell us about that story and how um, how this this

the gaboos um lore resonates with it. Um. Yeah, So I called boost was one of the figures that I had come across with within my research and always kind of like Helbert somewhere in my head to kind of come back to. And actually she's the last figure from this series that I worked on. Um So, as you mentioned, car boost is known as a gen that brings um nightmare but also specifically sleep proalysis to human body. Um so.

We also said in far seats also known as back deck, which is kind of like known as this thing that kind of you know, sits on your chest and one that you move um and so you know, I kind of started doing a lot of research first, like within also like the scientific aspect of it, like what happens when you experienced sleep paralysis. I don't know if you've

ever experienced that. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? I have not, but my husband has, and he has described it um as a gin to me, that's what he believes it was. It's yeah, it's a very I've experienced it um three times in my life, and I think like most of those three times I was really like stressed for like different reasons. And they say kind of like from the scientific aspect of its stress also like has you know, very kind of direct relationship to how

you experience this and why you experience it? But that the gin experience that your your husband is talking about is actually also very present in a way that that that you experienced the paralysis when you're sleeping. My first time that I had experienced it, I I literally saw someone opening the window, but I saw myself seeing them.

So that's another thing that happens again within what happens in your brain if you study it within scientific research, is that you you become an image and then you will be standing outside of that image then watching yourself. And I experienced it completely like that, and that's really scary because you see yourself not being able to move

while you're awake. Um So, anyway, I've been always like fascinated by that because I also had like this personal experience and I asked people sometimes you know about like have your experiences, What was your experience with sleep parallels if you did? Um So thinking about that and thinking about kind of like basically trauma, right, A lot of papers written on SAP parallelsis, as I said, is connected

to stress and trauma. And so I was like thinking about trauma and I was like doing like a lot of research in this um recent scientific also like research that is this idea of intergenerational trauma, which is that UM trauma stays in your DNA basically UM, and it can be passed on within generations. Some people also call it like blood memory, you know, so like the experience of enslaved people, let's say, to experience of war, to like other experiences that has been experienced too, again differ

different generations. It can be passed on that even if you don't experience it yourself as a new generation, it's still kind of stays within your DNA and your blood memory. So I was fascinated by those this this These are again like newer research UM and scientific studies, and I wanted to somehow connect this relationship between trauma into generational

trauma too. Also my ideas of you know, when we experienced into inter general trauma, like as a as a person you know who is like now, like thirty five, I think about birthing a lot, and I think about children a lot, but also not wanting to have my own my own child UM. And so I connect to the story to like four generations of women, so my grandmother, my mother, and myself and and imagined monsters like gen

like daughter UM. And then we all in different parts of this VR film, we tell different stories about motherhood and war and different different trauma and different encounter with gin So and all of this happens in a in

a bath house. As I said at the beginning of this conversation, UM, my grandmother always talked about bath houses and also public bath houses at a time were really important social spaces for women and intimacy between ways that women would go and spend hours, you know, at a at a bath house to bath, but also to hang

out and sing and gossip. Um. So this space of intimacy was something I wanted to bring together, this four generation of women for us to talk about different relationship we had we've had with um trauma and then war being a big part of me growing up in Iran.

And like this diary that I my mom gave me when I was around sixteen or seventeen that she wrote during um Irani Rock War when she was pregnant with my sister Um and somewhere in it she talks about how she feels guilty for giving birth to my sister and she doesn't know if it's a right decision and if it's a cruel decision. UM. And so that always

stayed with me, you know, as a teenager. It always stayed with me because I would also kind of um as my my, my, my parents are like this is um and saying that how could your generation give birth

to this many kids? Because the eight years of War had actually the highest rate of birth um and you know, again like connecting that to my own um experience stuff thinking about motherhood, but like rethinking motherhood and thinking about birthing as something that could be you know, birth justice is a specific word that I use in that narrative which you talk about that which is not just I mean the definition of birth justice is having the choice um of you know, as as a woman having a

choice of when with who and um let's see when with who? And I'll say that again in a second. But I'm trying to what is it like who? You know, let's see, I believe you said where. I guess it is where. Yeah, that makes sense, okay, so let me let me say that again. UM. So this I came across this you know, kind of very specific definition of birth justice, which is that as a woman having the

option to choose when with home and where to give birth? Um. And I added to that, what to give birth to UM you know, as my own kind of imagined way of thinking about how to break through this intergenerational trauma cycle, right um and kind of like the only way in it, I say, the only way to to to to break through this cycle is to reimagine the possibilities of what

we give birth to UM. And in this you know, fictional story that I'm kind of building within the VR film, I'm ear thing kind of like a monstrous gen mix of like you know, a child UM that is human and non human at a time, but kind of again, uh, within thinking about monstrosity as something that can be a position of empowerment, like embracing that that that monstrosity or the figure of the gin um this this child is able to see the future for us and help us

to build an alternative kind of kind of future, you know. UM. So it's again sits between like a real and real fictional and nonfictional more like documentary style UM film. But for me um as as you as you also like mentioned earlier, it's kind of like finding these stories and then connecting them to something that is very personal and also at the same time UM you know again can be expanded to other other people's experiences. Well, that film

and um that particular exactly. I think it was jarring to me in many ways. Also um hearing the voice that the childlike monster voice. Uh. You know, there's a real frightening aspect of course. I mean, like you know, Gin are supposed to be frightening. They inspire fear in us. Um, but I I feel like you're using that fear in

a very different way. UM. Can you talk a little bit about what you think whether there's instrumental whether you you are instrumentalizing the fear uh in a specific way to to mean something else that not necessarily like the fear means that these monstrous beings um are evil necessary because there's a strong connection between Gin evil, especially the Gin that we are told if the Gin encounter human beings, um,

the lores and those are definitely evil Gin. Yes, Um, yes, So I mean that's a really great question because the way that I have tried to try to build this project and kind of build build and refigure these these stories and figures is to find perhaps like a balance between um, this this hybrid aspect of what Jin are. So they're both feared uh and honored, right, so they can. They can. They can be your friend and at the same time your enemy. Um, you can. You can befriend

them and use their power. Like that's what they're known as. Right If if you know how to like befriend the gin and use their power, you can use that power to possess other other beings are like make some something happen within the world, right, Um. But also you can be possessed by them. So there's always this sort of gray area with the figure of the Gin um and even in the Koran when they're talked about. You know, we have the figure of the angel that obeys and

then the double that disobeys and um. Like humans, Gin have the will to obey or disobey um and that's something that made them, made made working with the figure of the Gin really interesting from my research and and

and this body of work. UM. So yeah, I try to kind of build a space where they're feared, but at the same time we're in we want to know them, we want to get to know that, we want to enter their world and within the as I mentioned earlier, the kind of the feminist movements and the feminism refiguration of them. UM. I try to like use use their figures UM as a way to again like find a space for the empowerment of women and not non binary

people UM, et cetera. So it's it's really a mix of these worlds that I tried to bring together UM and also channel this power of after gin um for our empowerment. We'll be right back after the short break. One of the questions that I pose in there's one specific episode that focuses on the female gin and one of the one of those gin that's heavily focused on

a check and who was really rich? I mean, there's so much tradition around that figure UM and but not the other ones that you actually have included your exhibit. But the question one of the questions I posed as you know, as I was reading these stories, I wondered, you know, I can see it playing both ways with these stories UM, which in large part of these in South Asian culture, you do not we don't. We don't have access to stories of female gen anymore. These don't

exist anymore. I've never heard them anymore unless they are like an unnamed which type of figure right UM or something that's not as UM I guess, not not as powerful as a second or a little bit or other kinds of female figures. But I've always wondered, um, we're were the were the perceptions around female gin? Do you think a reflection of how society viewed viewed women? You don't.

We we have this. I mean, it's not uncommon to hear in in a lot of Muslim cultures that, oh, yeah, women are bent a little crooked, like the rib of Adam because they come from the rib of atoms. So there's something a little nefarious about women. Or I wondered, are these stories of gin who, these female gin who have so much power and can inspire so much fear?

Are these actually projections of the women at the time themselves saying this is what we are capable of, and you should hold a little fear and love and respect all the same time. Yeah, I'd like to, you know, I like to think that's why a big part of

it the the one that you just mentioned. But also I'm pretty sure it's a combination of two pretty much, you know, within looking at a lot of these stories and kind of like also again, like one thing I've I've been doing and researching is um also apparel Um World of Um Western like figures or methodologies and how they've been used within different like feminist movements, right, like as I mentioned that the figure of the witch or um the you know, we have the figure of the zombies,

which can be male or female, but definitely I think um something that I have been fascinated by is um that kind of patriarchal you know, heaviness of like how how these figures are like not just that women are like you know from as you say, there's like that that's saying that women actually within some Islamic cultures and thinking that are like even a considered half of men right there, that incomplete and actually, to be fair, look, it's not just mean the all the Abrahamic I mean

you know original sin, right, I mean like Christianity and Judaism. It's exists, I was even not Abrahamic cultures, but certainly absolutely exactly Like so that's my my research within like other cultures and studies shows exactly what you're saying. That like that that like patriarchal kind of like perspective towards like women, their madness, they're like hysteria. Right, There's a long history of hysteria and patriarchy within like women having

this hysteria or madness for different reasons. When you're like, there's a whole Wikipedia of asia and hysteria. Well, America still thinks that a woman is not emotionally stable enough to become presidents. So yeah, and we have that within you know, any iron for example, you can be a judge as a woman because you are too emotional to be able to like judge with with logic basically. So yeah, So I want to tell I have to say this.

You know, I am I'm always uh and you know, I'm an observant Muslim um, and but I have had to rediscover my faith um in the last fifteen twenty years because I realized that the gatekeepers who were teaching us things have a very specific perspective, have a you know, it's just the male perspective, as a very patriarchal, misogynistic perspective, and so retelling the stories in a way that actually makes sense to the I would say the spirit of what I believe is a lot of faith is about

has really opened up a lot of doors for me. But this retelling of yeah Jewish magut, I cannot tell you. I can't stop thinking about this and I'm going to talk about this with every other person I meet, um, but for our listeners, just uh, you might you might not be familiar with your judge, but you might be familiar with Gog and Magogue, which is found in the

Biblical telling and the Talmudic telling. To telling and Gog and Magogue are a race of beings that, it is said, at least um I guess to be more specifically in the Islamic tradition, that they are basically hidden behind a wall. They have they they cause chaos. They are these beings that if they're unleashed into the world they'll destroy it. So for centuries and millennia they have been buried behind

this wall. Every single day they chip away at this wall, and at the end of the day they give up and say, well, we can't, we just can't get through. But everythingle The next day they start over again, and the as the story goes towards the end of time, um, towards the day of judgment, at one point they're going to breach the wall and completely be unleashed on this world. But oh my gosh, you have to tell me how

you imagine the story in your own words. Absolutely, yeah, so I came actually across UM this story sometime after UH the Muslim band or travel band have happened in the US, and I'm my stuff was also affected by it. At a time, UM, I had left the US for UM a week of exhibitions and conference that I was part of in Berlin, in Germany, and then the band happened.

And at a time I had UM an Iranian passport and a green card, and if some of you might remember, at the beginning a green card holders were also like included UH with the with the band and from if you were from these six band countries. UM. So I it was like such a strange, complicated moment where I just didn't know if I could come back to the US,

and you know I have. I have lived here for like now around eleven twelve years, and so that was like a really intense moment of realizing everything I've built here could just go go to zero. But obviously I was privileged enough to have the green card and be able to come back. While this story up to today, four years later, almost UH is very relevant to the lives of many people who are trying to come to

this country for for different reasons, as immigrants, refugees, etcetera. Um, And so I came across the story of yahujuj Um and you know this, this image of the wall was something that was just stuck in my head because it talks about the wall as something that they get these figure zolor Aarin. In some texts they say it's Um Alexander the Great Um to build this wall. Um and these the people of the city asked for this wall to be built to keep yah jud majus out because

they present chaos, as you also mentioned, Um. And so reading I started to do a lot of research around it, like reading different interpretations of this story, not just within you know, the Islamic text itself, but but different interpretations of Um. Different you know uh I guess um Muslim scholars or just just people reading this story and coming

up with their own interpretation of what this means. And one thing that was really fascinating to me is kind of these these these different time zones and timelines of how yeah judge magic or who yeah judge major had been interpreted at as so somewhere like oh they were um, you know, Turkish people or Mongolians who who attacked Iran somewhere like you know, again saying that they represent Israel. Um and you know, and again many many other interpretations

of them. But one thing that became very obvious to me is how through many many centuries of this story being interpreted, it shows that we always have found this figure of the other, right or the other as a way to make a monster of So what basically someone like Trump calls the bad people um and you know, the ones that can put America in danger or like we don't want to let them come in because of rapists, that they're the worst ones, right, absolutely, yeah, So how

through this monstrosity of these people, right, like making a monster of these people? Um, through so many years, including amoment we're living, these the other have been um justified as those we need to keep out, those we need

to ban, those we need to reject and um. The Islamic interpretation is that when the age come and break through the wall, we're going to You also mentioned experienced some kind of ending, and as you know, within Islamic studies, UM, that ending is is both dystopian and in some ways utopian, because the ending itself is dystopian, but it will it will result to basically something, um, you know that we want that is better, right, So, and and they use

this very specific term which is the end of time that they doesn't say like and they kind of I mean I read a lot about that specific frame, which is the end of time. And yeah, that was just really powerful for me because I was like, what would the end of this time mean to us right now, as you know, as Muslim, as people from you know,

even if you're not. I mean, it's about nationality at this point, right if you're from Ivan, but whatever your religion is, and other other countries that are also bound as well. Um, So it's like what, you know, what what would that end mean? And also for all these other people you know, we are now. In the past weeks there has been a lot of um conversations and kind of protest etcetera, um about you know, um, black people and and the struggle of black people in America

and and the history of slavery, etcetera. So it doesn't matter how your other within this context of history, but the fact that the otherness it has is almost always linked to this monstrosity was something that was you know,

really fascinating to me. So I turned around again like that that image and use the power of the chaos, the monstrous, the one that is the other um as a way to actually break through the wall and then wish for some some other, some, some new beginning, another world, an alternative reality that we can live in that is not whatever it is that we're experiencing. Now, you're telling us that the chaos that we fear, or that's feared by certain powers, um, we ourselves have internalized fear of

that chaos. When that chaos itself could bring the end of a time that's terrible for those of us who are mothered um and could could usher in, you know, whatever comes after the end of this time. UM. And it's just such a uh an eye opening. And I'm, like I said, I'm still I have to think about this for a long time and talk about this for

a lot of people. But I also thought it was really wonderful that you collectively imagine yeah, jujih Ma Juja as this female figure um and that and you said that she felt the burden of her people's exhaustion upon her shoulders, the exhaustion of constantly trying to break through

the wall, um and yet not giving up. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, when I was writing it, it was again very personal, but I was like horrified and at the same time I knew that I have the privileges that a lot of people don't have, so kind of like thinking about yeah, us thinking about that story as a story that becomes a poor doll in talking about and um representing the pain of all these people who are who are who are being other than being banned and

being rejected literally most times for no reason. So um, that was something that became yeah, very heartbreaking and at the same time painful to think about and write about.

It just really made me think about who we are, what or who we are taught to fear um, and to examine that a little more closely, And it really brought to mind h and how you know, right right post um, the post Civil War where there was like this explosion of UM fear around black men attacking white women and um, right like you know, with with birth of a national movies, all kinds of media, newspapers, um, And how we are systematically taught to fear something unquestioning,

without question And so this you have taught me to question maybe what it is that we've been taught to

fear UM. And I think one of the one of the things I love about how you framed this entire UM project is that, UM, the female jin not only has seen the unknown and the known, but she's embraced being the other absolutely and and that's that's something that I also try to use on my daily life and my practice of UM not shying away from, you know, wanting to constantly justify myself that I'm worthy, I'm good, and I you know, because of this reason or that reason,

I am worthy of either you know, UM living in this country or like having access to certain kind of resources, et cetera. UM. But kind of again like rather UM embracing the otherness and using it UM as a way to to to criticize that that very very thing that that has been UM, you know again mothering us. Okay, I'm gonna end with one last question for you, UM, but before that, I just to say thank you for this incredibly illuminating conversation for your work. I'm going to

continue to follow it. I'm so excited to have discovered it. UH, And we will point all our listeners and in that direction too, so they can continue to follow you. And my last question for you is this. Do you believe you have ever personally had an experience with jin Um? I think that the ones however you might think of jin I mean, it doesn't have to it can be whatever you jin is in your imagination, let me clear, right, Yeah, I mean, so there are two things I can say.

One is that the actual experiences of that I was telling you of this kind of nightmare sleep paralysis which you literally feel like there is it's not just like a nightmare, that there is another third person with you in that space, right, So it's like you and the GIN and also something else you know with with the GIN. So it's that experience of the sleep paralysis has been really intense and has stayed with me always. Um, and

when since I also start working on this project. You know, again, I grew up anyone with a lot of these gen related stories, etcetera. But um, it was not until when I started to do this body of work. She was just the unknown that I like really had to, you know, spend a lot of hours researching. And also that that caused like very real relationships that I had built with each of each of these figures, right, like I can

I sometimes call them like my children. These like five figures that that I you know, mentioned their names earlier that I have worked on because to work on each of them, I had to spend like hours not just researching their history and the stories told about them, but also like writing about them and really trying to like imagine this thing as something that I'm like using its

power to to to to do something else with. Right, and this like really became yeah, like a like a connection that I never thought I would I would find with something that I'm creating this intensely. Um but um, this is this is all like in that sense very like new to me. Um. So yeah, I I kind of see them not just as you say, like I'm able to imagine them also in many other forms and like many many many other ways of their their presence within like my personal life as well as what they

can do for the world and with the world. And kind of last thing I want to mention is that we really need a figure like the gen I I think, especially within like these kind of um feminist movements and thinking about women and uh kind of saying kind of trying to like find something away or like different from the dominant perhaps like Western white feminism movements for me, the image of the gin is something that you know, I I have found it so powerful because also it's

something that is for us. But one thing I say that you know, to build this future for us but by us, right um, And that's something that I think they can do. And so that means that their their presence.

When this project is almost done, she will since unknown, but I think their presence in my in my life will um stay in many serious ways because I will always think about them again as portals, as channels, as as as friends and allies and allies that can help us get through whatever it is that we're trying to get through as as we struggle this this fair moment.

Thanks for checking out this week's episode and conversation. If you want to learn more about more Machine and her work, you can find her on Twitter at the handle at Mo Machine. It is spelled m o r e h A s h i en her website as m O r e h s h I n dot com, watching dot com. And the exhibit that we talked so extensively about is called She Who Sees the Unknown, and you can find her the whole website about the entire project at She Who sees the Unknown dot com. Absolutely check

it out. UM, read the reading room, watch the videos. It's amazing. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Now there are as many people in the world with jin stories as there are gin, so if you have one you'd like to share, make sure to email it to me at the Hidden Gin at gmail dot com. That's the Hidden Gin. Th H E H I D d N d J I n N at gmail dot com. And until next time, remember we

are not alone. The Hidden Gin is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted by Robbiah Chaudry and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Our theme song was created by Patrick Quartets. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.