Riding in Silence draws from the depths of my family history, unraveling the echoes of migration, forced departures, and the quiet endurance of those caught between worlds. The series builds on my previous work, Freedom is Not Free (2021), where I explored the role of women in movements of resistance across the MENA region. However, in this latest series, I turns towards the intersection of masculinity, political ideology, and displacement, examining how historical forces shape personal narratives in ways both visible and unseen.

The tension between imposed identity and self-definition is at the heart of my exploration of masculinity. Through visual and textual fragments, I examine how masculinity has been shaped by war, colonialism, nationalism, and the rigid structures of religious ideology. The project traces how manhood has been weaponized, used as a tool to uphold power structures, and at times, violently policed. Through the lens of my father’s memories, we see how even the simplest acts—refusing to recite a prayer, seeking refuge, losing a homeland—become acts of quiet defiance.

This is not just a historical inquiry; it is a deeply personal one. The mind does not work in a linear way, neither do my sequences. There are no easy answers; let's deal with the discomfort of contradiction, let's recognize that resistance does not always look like rebellion, and that exile is both a state of being and a psychological inheritance.