"Will You Share Rage with Me?"

"Will You Share Rage with Me?" literally and figuratively explores what it is like to live in multiple places at once. Yaqeen Yamani’s recent body of work was designed for her final MFA thesis at Temple University. Featuring the piece "Disclaimers Prevent Me from Showing Work Here" installed at Temple Contemporary April 10-13th, the rest of her pieces will be on view at Big Ramp Philly and Information Space from April 13-May 11. After a fellow student installed a banner at Stella Elkins Gallery celebrating Puerto Rican and Palestinian solidarity in October 2023, Temple University began installing a disclaimer next to the work reading “Artwork on display at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture reflects the viewpoints of the credited artists and not necessarily the viewpoints of the school or Temple University.” The disclaimer is a poignant reminder to Palestinian and South-West Asian North African (SWANA) artists that cultural institutions have never been neutral or inclusive spaces. Yaqeen’s artwork, "Disclaimers Prevent Me from Showing Work Here", ironically does “reflect the viewpoints of the university” spotlighting how art spaces weaponize gallery text to control narratives of Black and Brown artists, whose existence can inherently call the institution’s politics into question. For Palestinian artist Yamani, the work responds to and interacts with the presence of disclaimers as a tool for censorship and reflects Yamani’s unwillingness to work in spaces that show no support for Palestinian resistance and freedom. Through the refusal to show the full thesis in Temple Contemporary and leave the allotted space empty, Yamani responds to the failure of art spaces and academic institutions to acknowledge Palestinian voices and leans into spaces of solidarity and support.