Delight in Forgotten Corners
Reyila Hadeer
Artist’s Statement: Reyila Hadeer’s visual poem “Delight in Forgotten Corners” is a visual response to the Uyghur poem “No Road Back Home.” In Reyila’s visual poem, she is in awe of human creativity. Reyila conveys that being an artist means having the ability to create wherever you are; is there anything more delightful than noticing our capacity to become our universe no matter how the outside world treats us? She presents this visual poem to show her respect for indigenous people in their homeland and the diaspora. Indigenous communities all around the world might be experiencing ongoing invisibility. However, the Indigenous communities never stop expanding their creativity and creating delight through art to call forth life’s richness.
This visual poem invites the audience to slowly move from leaning down towards the ground to looking up into the spacious sky, ending in a corner that feels close to someplace of home or indoor dwelling. In her series of photos, she chose a light and dreamy tone to represent the gentle and fragile delight through the eyes of people who are searching for a home.
Reyila Hadeer is an artist-scholar from the Silk Road. She is currently living in America, pursuing her passion for writing, visual art, and qualitative educational research. She often explores how diasporic communities are attempting to carve an invisible home through human creativity. Her work has appeared in Northwest Review, DeLuge, and Evocations Review.