love + salt
a collection of phrases
love + curses
Inspired from my family dialect, Baghdadi Judea Arabic,
I founded this site as a resource of our terms along with an ever
evolving world of phases from communities all around the world.
Be part of the love + salt public artwork by sharing favorite
terms for love and insult.
love + salt was born out of my family's Baghdadi dialect, which is an endangered language. The terms of love and insults seem to be the most commonly shared and passes on parts of the language though to my generation and I'm curious how other people engage with their own most expressive/ extreme ways of verbal expression.
The collected expressions on this site will be recored and will accompany as whispers, offering a soundscape for the installation, Shards of Memory.
Resources
Interested in sharing your favorite
insults and terms of love?
Share and help make a public artwork
come to life.
The installation of love + salt, is titled
Shards of Memory will be installed
in the Greater Boston area in 2022.
Shards of Memory is made from mortar
(cement) as paint, glitter and mosaic tiles.
The imagery is sourced from my family
heritage, describing memories, stories
and ephemera from my family’s refugee
story from Baghdad to current day Israel,
Canada and USA.
From Silk to Cement:
Why cement? My grandfather had a
fabric shop in Baghdad, but after he and
wife and four kids fled Iraq for Israel in the
early 1950s he eventually traded his
medium of silks and woven fabrics for
cement and morter in construction
and contracting apartments
in the area of Ramat Gan
(little Baghdad in Israel)
Amulet, 28" x 38" cement and glitter on hardy board. 2019
Psycholinguists have remarked “taboo words communicate emotional information more effectively than non-taboo words” and allow us to vent anger without getting physical. Common Iraqit phrases of love like “Dalika Anna” and "Kapar", (willing to sacrifice my soul for you) are often shared to adoring children. Even singer Netta Barzilai popularized “Kapar” at Eurovision during her performance in 2018.
I hope for this project to offer a way for diverse communities to share in their expressions, reflect on the vibrance of language, and memory of family through this public art project.
Love + Salt: Shards of Memory, ranges in scale from 5 feet. An armature below ground secures the panels made foam and cement. The images are made from mortar (cement) paint and mosaic tiles. The imagery, sourced from my family heritage, describes memories, stories and ephemera from my family’s refugee story from Baghdad to current day Israel, Canada and USA
The phrases shared by you will be recored and will accompany the installation at a future location, as whispers, offering a sound scape for the Shards of Memory.