New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 

The upheaval of recent years, including the global pandemic, climate emergency, and stark political division, prompted the central question that shaped this exhibition: How have these extraordinary times inspired artists? New Worlds features the work of artists who imagine worlds different from the one we live in today. Their visions are born of alternate histories, power structures, or laws of nature. Just as the interpretations of “new worlds” are wide-ranging, so, too, are the objects on display. 

Artists use varied mediums to explore ideas related to gender, displacement and belonging, the natural world, technology, the power of community, and the past as a guide for the future. 

NMWA’s Women to Watch exhibition series is a collaborative project that began in 2008 with the museum’s national and international outreach committees. It features innovative artists based in the committees’ regions who work within a selected theme or medium. New Worlds is the largest iteration of this exhibition series to date, featuring twenty-eight artists from around the world. The committees participating in New Worlds consulted with contemporary art curators in their respective regions to create shortlists of artists whose work relates to these ideas. From these lists, NMWA curators selected the work featured here. 

New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 is organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts and sponsored by participating committees in Argentina, Arizona, Arkansas, Northern California, Southern California, Canada, Chile, Colorado, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Greater Kansas City Area, Massachusetts, the Mid-Atlantic Region, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Peru, Spain, Texas, the United Kingdom, Washington, and Wyoming. 

The exhibition is made possible by the Clara M. Lovett Emerging Artists Fund and the Sue J. Henry and Carter G. Phillips Exhibition Fund, with major support provided by Patti and George White, Share Fund, Linda Mann, the Pennsylvania Committee of NMWA, San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA, and the UK Friends of NMWA. Additional funding is provided by Robyn D. Collins, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, the Honorable Mary V. Mochary, and S&P Global. Further support comes from Daiwa Securities Group Inc.; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.; S&R Evermay; Saffronart Foundation; S M B C Nikko Securities Inc.; Shiseido Company, Limited; Sony Group Corporation; Suntory Holdings Limited; Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, Inc.; THE TOKYO CLUB; Noriko Kashiwagi; and Ayako Weissman. 

The catalogue for New Worlds is supported by members and friends of the Wyoming Committee of NMWA, in memory of Lisa Claudy Fleischman. 

The museum extends appreciation to the Embassy of France in the United States with the support of Villa Albertine, the British Embassy Washington, the Embassy of Peru in the United States, the Embassy of the Argentine Republic, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Washington, and the Embassy of Italy with the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington. 

For exhibition resources, including label transcripts, visit nmwa.org/new-worlds. 

Photography is encouraged. Share and tag us on social media: #NMWAnow @WomenInTheArts 

The large-print guide is ordered presuming you enter the second floor from the passenger elevators. 

Marina Vargas

b. 1980, Granada, Spain

Intra-Venus, 2019–21 

Carrara marble; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Spain Committee  

Vargas uses the visual language of classical sculpture to propose new ways of thinking about large-scale public monuments. In cities around the world, marble sculptures of historical figures, mostly men, heroize the actions and leadership of a select few. Through her viscerally realistic self-portrait, which depicts her body during breast cancer treatment, Vargas seems to ask what society would look like if we monumentalized the experiences of everyday women. 

Arely Morales

b. 1990, Jalisco, Mexico 

Una por una (One by One), 2019 

Oil on canvas; Courtesy of the artist and Talley Dunn Gallery

Presented by the Texas State Committee 

Morales depicts members of her Latin American immigrant community on a grand scale historically reserved for mythological, religious, or royal subjects. In doing so, she claims space for women and men whose essential work, such as cleaning, often goes unnoticed. The three women in this painting proudly face the viewer, wielding the tools of their trade with strength and determination. 

Ana María Hernando 

b. 1959, Buenos Aires

Nadar en el diluvio de aguas caldas (To Swim in the Deluge of Warm Waters), 2024 

Tulle, wood, metal lattice, and felt; Courtesy of the artist and Robischon Gallery, Denver 

Presented by the Colorado Committee

In Hernando’s installation, masses of colorful tulle spill uncontained into surrounding spaces. The light and airy material, often used in dressmaking, carries symbolic weight for the artist. Drawing on its association with feminine clothing and sewing, Hernando creates monuments that celebrate the collective work of generations of unacknowledged women. Her works manifest the feminine as joyful and inexorable. 

Mona Cliff/HanukGahNé (Spotted Cloud)

Enrolled member of the Aaniiih Nation (Gros Ventre), Fort Belknap, Montana, b. 1977, Prescott, Arizona

Past/Presence/Future, 2020  

Gas mask, seed beads, smoked brain-tanned hide, acrylic paint, Oklahoma red dirt, and matte medium; Great Plains Art Collection, Museum purchase through the generosity of Lincoln Community Foundation and BNSF Railway Foundation

Presented by the Greater Kansas Area Committee 

Teachings and crafts of the Aaniiih culture, passed down through generations, lie at the heart of Cliff’s work. Past/Presence/Future is part of an ongoing series in which the artist creates new ceremonial items and regalia with beadwork and fabric appliqué. The gas mask refers to toxic elements of today’s world, including the pandemic, wars, and global warming. In this series, Cliff reflects on past knowledge systems and possible futures.

Mona Cliff/HanukGahNé (Spotted Cloud)

Enrolled member of the Aaniiih Nation (Gros Ventre), Fort Belknap, Montana, b. 1977, Prescott, Arizona

Conjured Topography, 2022  

Prescoia seed beads, maple wood, beeswax, copal resin, pine resin, benzoin resin, and thread on plywood; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Greater Kansas Area Committee

Cliff prepared cherry wood with beeswax and resin that she heated with a blowtorch before adhering strings of seed beads in hues of lavender, amber, and rose. The shimmering beads pay homage to nature, alluding to the undulating Flint Hills of Kansas, dips and bends in valleys, and crystalized geodes. By spending hundreds of hours adding thousands of beads to the wood surface, Cliff also honors the labor-intensive work of women artisans.

April Banks 

b. 1972, Takoma Park, Maryland

Future Ancient, 2022

Fused glass, cut metal, and LED light panel; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Southern California Committee

Future Ancient is the first work Banks created with fused glass, which she uses to explore the ways ancient cultures have inscribed their ancestry through patterns, glyphs, and totemic figures. The omnidirectional central being challenges the linear, future-focused definition of time, centered on advancement and profit. This work proposes an alternate path to self-knowledge, equally focused on past lineage and future legacy.

Migiwa Orimo 

b. 1957, Tokyo

Signal (Morse Code), 2019

Embroidery floss on linen, desk, and book; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Ohio Advisory Group

Orimo translates into Morse code anti-war writings and other critiques of patriarchal norms written by women from different cultures. She embroiders delicate French knots and dashes in vermillion red thread on fabric, which she hangs like traditional Japanese scrolls. Morse code, a form of long-distance communication used during wartime, becomes a symbolic shield of protection for women, as Orimo’s work addresses gaps in our knowledge of historical women’s experiences.

Sarah Ortegon HighWalking 

Citizen of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and Arapaho descendant, b. 1986, Denver

Creation of Love, 2022

Size thirteen beads, brain-tanned deer hide, and cedar; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Wyoming Committee

Through her work, Ortegon HighWalking channels the widespread Indigenous belief in the interconnectedness of humans to nature, to each other, and to multiple generations. She crafted this cradleboard for her infant son using traditional techniques: an act of cultural preservation and an expression of hope for the future.

Sarah Ortegon HighWalking 

Citizen of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and Arapaho descendant, b. 1986, Denver

Healing Circle, 2024

Oil on canvas; Courtesy of the artist, Dedicated to Zedora Enos

Presented by the Wyoming Committee

Ortegon HighWalking’s paintings depict jingle dresses, originally from the Anishinaabe culture, worn and danced in for healing and ceremonial purposes. Although these dresses are not inhabited by bodies, they capture the sense of movement and hope that is integral to the dance.

SHAN Wallace 

b. 1991, Baltimore

Pale Blue Egun, 2024 

Flashe, gesso, paper, gouache, oil stick, shells, and crackle paste on wood; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Mid-Atlantic Committee

Wallace’s work pays homage to the spectrum of Black experience in the United States. Pale Blue Egun fuses folklore and fantasy to explore belief systems and rituals related to death for the Black community. Motifs such as dice, shells, and a chicken serve as offerings for or methods of communication with the dead. The figure of the Egun, an embodiment of ancestors in Yoruba tradition, guides others through imagined realms.

Randa Maroufi

b. 1987, Casablanca, Morocco

Barbès, from the series “Les Intruses,” 2019

HD color video, 6 min.; Work produced by l’Institut des Cultures d’Islam as part of the Embellir Paris project initiated by the City of Paris; Courtesy of the artist and Galerie PARIS-B

Presented by Les Amis du NMWA

Randa Maroufi

b. 1987, Casablanca, Morocco

La Princière, from the series “Les Intruses,” 2019

Color photograph; Work produced by l’Institut des Cultures d’Islam as part of the Embellir Paris project initiated by the City of Paris; Courtesy of FRAC Bourgogne

Presented by Les Amis du NMWA

Maroufi’s works Barbès and La Princière are part of a series in which the artist exposes the gendering of urban public spaces. By inserting groups of women into settings frequently dominated by men, such as a corner café after dark or in a park playing chess, Maroufi creates an alternate reality to underscore the current status quo. Her work inverts the gender imbalance in order to call attention to its ubiquity and viewers’ unexamined expectations.

Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya

b. 1988, Atlanta

the primitive sign of wanting, 2024

Vintage TV screens, Raspberry Pis, and internet-connected receipt printers; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the New York Committee

Phingbodhipakkiya, who describes her work as a “call to moral vigilance,” invites viewers to consider the ethical implications of human advancement in the face of climate change and rapidly changing technology. Assembled from discarded artifacts and found objects, this interactive installation challenges visitors to confront their moral biases about issues facing us today—and to imagine the possibilities of tomorrow.

Visitors are welcome to interact with the work by scanning the QR code on the right-hand screen. 

Ai Hasegawa

b. 1979, Shizuoka, Japan

(Im)Possible Baby, Case 01: Asako & Moriga, 2015

Digital photo prints and videos; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Japan Committee

Noting that couples outside of heteronormative groups lack access to new reproductive technologies, Hasegawa posits a scenario in which same-sex couples could have their own genetically related children. In this project, the artist analyzed the DNA data of a lesbian couple to simulate their potential children in fictional family photographs. In video interviews and social media comments, individuals express varied opinions about the possibility of expanding and redefining the traditional family unit with emerging biotechnologies.

Sophia Pompéry

b. 1984, Berlin

Globes (Schropp), 2023

Pigment print on Baryta; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Germany Committee

Pompéry overexposed this image, erasing the country names and borders on the illuminated children’s globes. With this blank slate, the artist questions the common understanding of facts inscribed on these globes and invites viewers to reconsider their own countries, cities, and borders.

Sophia Pompéry 

b. 1984, Berlin

Fluten (Floods), 2023

Steel, perforated latex, and LED lights; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Germany Committee

Pompéry’s practice lies at the intersection of art, science, and philosophy, investigating the artifice of constructs such as money, units of measure, and time. Fluten comprises an aerial map of recorded levels of light pollution in the Arctic Circle. Scattered atop it are ranging rods, typically used in land surveying. The haphazard placement of the rods implies the futility of creating records of the natural world—its time scale is beyond human comprehension.

Marianna Dixon Williams

b. 1990, Augusta, Georgia

Hanging Valley, 2024

Baltic birch, record player, speakers, acrylic, cut rubber, aluminum, linen, and light; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Georgia Committee

Williams uses computer programming, early phonautogram technology, a laser cutter, and computer-aided design to create audio recordings of the Arctic Circle. The discs magnify barely perceptible sights and sounds of our natural surroundings; they also degrade over time, alluding to climate change. The form of this work is based on the negative space created in actual hanging valleys, geological features that are shaped by rapid erosion and melting glaciers.

Noémie Goudal

b. 1984, Paris

Phoenix V, 2021

Inkjet print; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the UK Friends of NMWA

Goudal expresses the complexity of geological time by weaving together strips of photographs of equatorial forests and rephotographing the compositions on the same sites. Inspired by the discovery of organic matter in Antarctic ice samples that revealed that the frozen land was once lush with vegetation, Goudal’s work offers a meditation on the vastness of time and shifting climate on our planet.

Noémie Goudal

b. 1984, Paris

Below the Deep South, 2021

Video, 11 min.; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the UK Friends of NMWA

Goudal’s work uses trompe l’oeil effects, in which seemingly simple images reveal their complexity upon close inspection. In this film, tropical foliage appears to burn away, slowly revealing that the material on fire is actually a photograph, which reveals another photograph behind it. This continues for many layers, evoking the power of fire as both destructive and regenerative. The final frames expose the work’s artifice, prompting viewers to reconsider what is “real” in our environment.

Irene Fenara

b. 1990, Bologna, Italy

Three Thousand Tigers, 2020

Wool and silk tapestry; Collection Museo del Novecento, Donation Premio Rotary Club Milano Brera

Presented by Gli Amici del NMWA

Fenara explores how technology can change our perception of reality. The artist feeds a data set of three thousand images of tigers—approximately the current number of living tigers in the wild—into a generative algorithm. The product is a distorted digital fauna that retains only some of the real animal’s characteristics. Fenara’s work implies that the tiger looms larger in our media and imaginations than in nature. She turned the patterns into tapestries, referring to the practice of making animal-hide rugs, and had them produced in India, where most living tigers are found.

Eliza Naranjo Morse

b. 1980, Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico

A Return to Relationship, 2024

Collected earth and acrylic on drywall; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the New Mexico Committee

This mural was inspired by the text Indigenous Research Design: Transnational Perspectives in Practice (2023), which shares stories and teachings from Indigenous people’s lives and knowledge systems. Morse paints cartoon-inspired animals, whom she calls “Beings,” that share familial connections as they go on a communal pilgrimage. Each Being carries unique experiences, tools, and knowledge that guide them toward new possibilities and greater compassion.

Francisca Rojas Pohlhammer

b. 1985, Santiago, Chile

Universalis Cosmographia, 2024

Glazed ceramic and copper, 25 elements; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by Capítulo Chileno

Rojas Pohlhammer melds contemporary and traditional imagery to redefine representations of women. Arranged in the shape of a Chakana cross, a design found in ancient Andean cultures, the figurines reference a common ceramic form made by women in Quinchamalí, Chile, that shows a woman holding a guitar. Rojas Pohlhammer was inspired by this representation of woman as artist, rather than as mother or wife, to create her own female figurines that upend gender norms: hers hold weapons and wear balaclavas. They surround a drone, a device often used in warfare today.

Alexis McGrigg

b. 1989, Jackson, Mississippi

The Waiting Room, 2022

Procion dye and acrylic on canvas; Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech Gallery

Presented by the Mississippi State Committee

McGrigg envisions nebulous realms inhabited by ambiguous human-like forms. This is a liminal space, a plane of existence that the artist calls “the Beloved.” In The Waiting Room, these forms appear to materialize out of the depths of space; souls congregate and rest on their journeys. As McGrigg visualizes what may lie beyond our terrestrial lives, her work encourages viewers to think beyond physical differences and recognize our shared essence. 

Rajyashri Goody

b. 1990, Pune, India

Losing All Taste, 2023

Paper and ceramic; Courtesy of the artist and GALLERYSKE

Presented by the India Committee

Goody’s installations of food items and found objects address the caste system in India. The artist is a member of the Dalit community, which has faced intense discrimination. Denied access to food available to upper castes, Dalits have had to be resourceful in obtaining ingredients and preparing meals. Goody re-creates recipes from Dalit literature in ceramic form to process social trauma and celebrate the endurance and resilience of the Dalit people. In an accompanying series of booklets that bridge poetry and recipes, the artist shares her adaptations of published autobiographies about the Dalit experience with food.

Daniela Rivera

b. 1973, Santiago, Chile

1033 botes (1033 bounces), from the series “Ella Nunca Chuteo la Pelota” (“She Never Kicked the Ball”), 2021

Double-sided drawing, malachite and azurite stains, copperpoint drawing, 1033 soccer ball bounces, table, and tilted mirror; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Massachusetts State Committee

Rivera’s work is inspired by women in Chuquicamata, Chile: After being excluded from social services offered by the mining company that employed their husbands, they formed the women’s branch of a football (soccer) team to gain visibility, benefits, and political representation. Although they never actually played the sport, their recognition as a formal team enabled them to join the copper workers’ union—the country’s largest labor union. They even successfully elected a woman from their group as the organization’s president.

Daniela Rivera

b. 1973, Santiago, Chile

2624 botes (2624 bounces), from the series “Ella Nunca Chuteo la Pelota” (“She Never Kicked the Ball”), 2022

2624 soccer ball bounces on Yupo paper coated with charcoal and house paint, copperpoint drawing, mirror, and hinges; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Massachusetts State Committee

Daniela Rivera

b. 1973, Santiago, Chile

Ella Nunca Chuteo la Pelota (She Never Kicked the Ball), 2021

Video (edited by Fari Eshraghi), 4:06 min.; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Massachusetts State Committee

Molly Vaughan

b. 1977, London

Project 42: Myra Ical, 4300 block of Garrot St., Houston, TX, 2018

Inkjet-printed textiles, silkscreened fabric, antique seal teeth, wallpaper, bronze, and quartz crystal; Necklace by Debra Baxter; Seattle Art Museum

Presented by the Washington State Committee

Molly Vaughan

b. 1977, London

Project 42: Gwen Amber Rose Araju, Newark, CA, 2021

Inkjet- and silkscreen-printed fabrics with headdress; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Washington State Committee

Vaughan’s series “Project 42” responds to violence toward transgender people in the United States. The artist and her team create garments that commemorate the lives of murdered transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Using Google Earth, Vaughan takes screen shots of locations where these murders have occurred. She manipulates the digital images to create abstract patterns, printing them on fabric to make into clothing that can be worn by a collaborator during an activation. 

Graciela Arias Salazar

b. 1978, Ayacucho, Peru

Creación del Amazonas (Creation of the Amazon), 2023

Polyptych of ten machetes and acrylic on wood; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by Capítulo Peruano

For Arias Salazar, the idea of “new worlds” means exploring the mythology of cultures indigenous to the Amazon. Here, she visualizes the origin story of the Shipibo Conibo people. Their ancestors came to Earth riding on the back of the god Ronin. They settled in the jungle, where Ronin gave them an understanding of the natural world, including the sacred plant ayahuasca, used to connect them with plants, animals, and spirits.

Nicki Green

b. 1986, Boston

A Discrete History of Intimacy and Violence (double urinal basin with faucets), 2019

Glazed vitreous china with epoxy; Courtesy of CULT Aimee Friberg

Presented by San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA

Green produced these ceramic sculptures during a residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. She interrogates gendered binaries of Judaic ritual baths that complicate participation for trans individuals. Drawing from her Jewish background and gender politics, she transforms urinals and bidets into sacred wash basins that can affirm the holiness of trans bodies. As she describes her medium, “Clay can become anything and everything. . . . To me, that makes clay feel really trans.” 

Nicki Green

b. 1986, Boston

Anointed (double bidet basin with faucets), 2019

Glazed vitreous china with epoxy; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by San Francisco Advocacy for NMWA

Meryl McMaster

nêhiyaw/Métis from Red Pheasant Cree Nation and member of Siksika Nation, British, and Dutch, b. 1988, Ottawa, Canada

Lead Me to Places I Could Never Find on My Own I, from the series “As Immense as the Sky,” 2019

Digital c-print; Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

Presented by the Canada Committee

McMaster photographed Lead Me to Places I Could Never Find on My Own I on the Badlands in Grasslands National Park, where her ancestors journeyed and lived. The area’s increasing light pollution, which obstructs the stars, has diminished her community’s ability to navigate the world. McMaster photographed sites such as this one because of their histories: “They were very powerful, overwhelming places, with all kinds of ancestral life, history, and wisdom buried within them, predating human existence.”

Saskia Jordá 

b. 1978, Caracas, Venezuela

Raíces (Roots), 2019

Felt, thread, cotton yarn, plaster, and wooden spools; Courtesy of the artist (originally commissioned by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art for the exhibition Counter-Landscapes: Performative Actions from the 1970s–Now, 2019)

Presented by the Arizona Committee

Jordá’s work is anchored by three pairs of feet cast in plaster: her own, in the center, are flanked by those of her maternal and paternal grandmothers. Above them hang twisted ropes evoking roots. In this sculpture, Jordá honors the journeys that all three women took as they migrated to restart their lives in new countries. The totemic figures remind viewers that we carry our roots wherever we go.  

Meryl McMaster

nêhiyaw/Métis from Red Pheasant Cree Nation and member of Siksika Nation, British, and Dutch, b. 1988, Ottawa, Canada

I Listened as the World Became Silent, from the series “Bloodline—Stories of my Grandmothers | nôhkominak âcimowina,” 2022

Pigment print on archival paper mounted to aluminum composite panel; Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

Presented by the Canada Committee

McMaster explores her Indigenous and Euro-Canadian identities through semi-fantastical self-portraits. In this work, the artist references the 1885 hangings of eight Plains Cree men, who were publicly executed for killing several government representatives during an uprising against the Canadian government for its oppression of Indigenous peoples. The artist’s great-great-grandmother was forced to attend the execution as a warning against future dissent.

Irina Kirchuk

b. 1983, Buenos Aires

Tetris II, 2020  

Iron, plastic, and foam; Courtesy of Teller Collection, Buenos Aires

Presented by Capítulo Argentino

Looking at her surrounding urban environment from a whimsical perspective allows Kirchuk to use everyday objects in new and surprising ways. In her hands, the mundane becomes magical, reminding us that we can decide how to view our surroundings. Inspired in part by the grilles that cover doors and windows in Buenos Aires, Kirchuk uses discarded materials to reveal the beauty of a city’s detritus.

Aimée Papazian

b. 1975, Manhasset, New York

Which End Up?, 2022

Ceramic, glaze, wire, wood, paint, and flocking on panels; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Arkansas Committee

Papazian’s work presents a world that, from a distance, looks familiar to our own. This world, however, occupies a different plane of existence and, upon closer inspection, is eerily sterile and ordered. The work’s shifted perspective and sense of displacement echoes the way many people felt in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when empty streets and a rebounding natural world belied humanity’s turmoil. 

Hannan Abu-Hussein

b. 1972, Umm al-Fahm, Israel

Mashkhara (Blacker), 2017

Video, 5:23 min.; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Friends of NMWA in Israel

In this film, which Abu-Hussein made four months after her father’s death, the artist sits mourning in a room heaped with coal. She wears a white garment that belonged to her father, which becomes increasingly blackened as she bathes in coal dust. She records her grieving process for her father, with whom she had a contentious relationship, as well as her estrangement from her birthplace, Umm al-Fahm, a city known for coal production.

Hannan Abu-Hussein

b. 1972, Umm al-Fahm, Israel

Roqyah (Talisman), 2018

Video (with photography by Jabreen Rami; editing by Ann Deych), 1:51 min.; Courtesy of the artist

Presented by the Friends of NMWA in Israel

Seated with her head in her mother’s lap, the artist listens as the older woman recites two surahs (chapters) from the Qur’an, Al-Fatihah and Al-Ikhlas, often recited for protection, healing, and strength. She then speaks a non-religious invocation against the evil eye, traditionally passed down from mother to daughter. The rhythmic intonation of her mother’s words lulls Abu-Hussein into a meditative state, a moment of respite for both women, whose lives have been defined in different ways by patriarchal power structures.