FEDA EID
Feda Eid is a Lebanese-American visual artist living on occupied, unceded, territory of the Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Massachusett People (Quincy,MA). Her work explores the expression of heritage, tradition, identity and the often tense but beautiful space between what is said, what is felt, and and what is lost in translation. She captures these emotions through her bold use of color, textiles, adornment and pop culture linking the past and present. As the daughter of Lebanese immigrants who fled the country’s civil war in 1982, Feda is guided by her family’s journey and her own childhood growing up as a Muslim in the US. She believes in the telling of personal narratives to broaden our perspectives and to ultimately help us feel the universal emotions that connect us all.
Feda studied Sociology at Regis College and photography at New England School of Photography. Her work has been featured and exhibited at the Peabody Essex Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Lesley University, SASAKI Architecture, Columbia University, and The Shed NY among others. She was awarded the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Emerging Studio Artist Fellowship in 2018, was a luminary and 2019 Visiting Studio Artist at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and most recently an artist in residence at Mass MoCA studios in June.
Instagram: @fedaeid
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ARTIST Q&A
Born: Brockton, MA
Currently lives: Quincy, MA
Title of artwork: Picnic
What’s it about? This piece is titled Picnic and part of a series I’m working on, Made in USA, صنع في أمريكا, a visual story exploring the complexity of what is made, grown, cultivated and nourished in these lands. Through a reimagined red, white, and blue color palette, it explores personal experiences growing up as an Arab, Lebanese and Muslim American in a “melting pot” of assimilation, discrimination, orientalism, and dominating negative stereotypes perpetuated by art, politics and the media. It reimagines what it means to “make yourself”, make home, using vintage, upcycled, and nostalgic domestic garments, textiles, objects, and pop culture references from both SWANA (South West Asian and North Africa/Middle East) and American traditions. Connecting and reflecting on the foundations of a nation created through Indigenous genocide, Black enslavement, imperialism, and white supremacy. What will we continue to nurture and plant here? What will the future of all things made in the USA be? Do we have the courage to transform, to change, to stitch a new tapestry of collective liberation?
This piece in particular summons the ancestors, the grandmothers, the makers, calling to us and cleansing spaces through us. A picnic for eating the rich but dripping in the roots. I made the face veil from vintage silver plated utensils and a basket. Over the basket is a vintage checkered tablecloth balancing the goods wrapped in a reworked vintage scarf where I added other collected fabrics in a patchwork style. The mashlah or outer cloak is made from a tablecloth and references a middle eastern garment used for both protection and adornment. Underneath is a vintage abaya that was my mothers. My hands are adorned with evil eye protection from a Kurdish woman owned business Sayran, a vintage watch and traditional gold jewelry from Lebanon.
Where else can we find your work? I’ll be exhibiting this series next year during my residency with Eliot Craft School in JP in collaboration with their teen bridge program where I’ll be teaching students how to take their own self portraits within the same theme as Made in USA series. Stay tuned for that on my social media!
Where is your favorite public art piece in the area?I have not seen it yet in person but the ProBlak greenway mural ‘Breathe Life Together’ is stunning and iconic in so many ways. He’s also the first Black and first Boston-based artist blessing that space for us all.
Who is your favorite Boston-area artist to follow? That is tough because there’s too many! Porsha Olayiwola is an amazing poet I really admire, recently also featured at ISGM alongside Zanele Muholi.
What’s your favorite way to spend a day off? In the summer you’ll find me near any body of water, I am a summer baby and love the water! Also thrifting is my therapy since forever so you could also find me there searching for treasure.
What was your top song for 2021? Blu Fiefer – Sharaf. She’s a Lebanese singer that performed at the Baalbeck festival in 2021 during a very difficult time of revolution, corruption and poverty, which is still present in the country. Music is so powerful in the way that it helps us not feel alone and inspires us to create and express our own emotions too.
Favorite food spot in in Allston, Brighton or the surrounding area? Rhythm ‘n Wraps is a fav vegan spot
What have you learned about your creative practice in recent years? I love a change of environment, residencies have really helped me realize this. It really stimulates my creative mind and all the possibilities. I think many artists can relate to this so whenever I’m in a rut, getting out of the house, even just going on a hike, or into the city, having a day to explore does wonders for me. Also being ok with letting something sit for a while, I always come back to it with so much more to give.
What is a piece of advice you would give to your past self as a young artist? Even those moments when things aren’t quite clicking, you are learning and growing and gaining experience within the DOING. Trust in what is channeling through you.
What is your dream project to work on? I’m really enjoying the current series I’m trying to finish up, I feel like it is my dream project for so many reasons. It combines tactile work I do with my hands- up cycling, sewing, styling into a visual piece of artwork I can condense into a frame. Would love to work on an outdoor installation of photography on fabric somehow in the future. I have some ideas but its a totally different world I’m very curious about.
