“Reflections” an interview with Sasa Aakil!
Sasa Aakil, black and white headshot.
scroll to the bottom for more information and direct links to Sasa’s creative happenings! (including her Chapbook release event on Sunday April 12th at Busboys & Poets!)
instagram : @sasaaakil | @sasa.aakil.ceramicsWho are some of the most inspiring women in your life?
“My mom! Being that she homeschooled me, she had a huge hand in my education. She taught me about poetry, and also put me in artistic spaces. Ra Brown (aka Raquel Brown, an impeccable Philadelphia native & poet that teaches and organizes youth in Washington DC) is another woman that played a big part in me stepping into my gifts as a writer by continually providing me a space to be empowered.”
What were some things you able to learn (about the world) while being a student advisor for the Smithsonian American Art Museum?
“ I received so much insight about the museum and exhibition space. A very valuable experience for an artist, and a future museum career. I learned how to have complex conversations, mainly about harmful pieces of history related to art. I learned how to deal with heavy things that people usually shy away from. This time also allowed me to catch a peek into the intricacies and complications curators often have when putting together a delicate show like ‘The Shape of Power’, which is coming out at The Smithsonian American Art Museum in November of this year!”
‘The Shape of Power’ is an exhibition centered around how different kinds of power show up in various sculptures, covering a vast timeline of sculpture works.” Sasa continues “As a Howard Student Advisor, I got to look at the list of sculptures that would be in the show, and helped the curators understand how their show would come across to an audience, considering the distinction between different themes, and how to describe the stories being told through the sculptures. This semester, some of my some of my tasks as a student advisor center around writing reflections in response to specific works and coming up with songs that would go with certain sculptures.”
How do you feel your exposure to death has deepened your appreciation and affected your approach to life?
“ I've had a lot of deaths in my life, at least 10 close loved ones. This experience with loss has made me very sensitive with any loss, personal or other. In these seasons of people passing, I think about death, not in a fearful way, but in a very reflective way. I think about how death is really only upsetting for the people who stick around, versus the person who dies, whose death brings them ease. Or how when people die, they become an ancestor, their legacy living on to tell a unique part of history. For example, Breonna Taylor, an amazing person in her life, an award winning EMT and first responder, a symbol of hope to many people, in her death became a symbol of a very disheartening truth regarding the police system in this country… The more I learn, the more I find the human to martyr pipeline to be very interesting.”
What would you say your role is in your family? How do you feel about it?
“ I’m a daughter and a sister. Usually the sibling to look after the younger ones. It's pretty fun sometimes though it can also be irritating. I’m usually the one who tends to the little things and pays the most attention to the details. Like baking desserts with my siblings during the holidays, or putting up the Ramadan decorations… in fact my mom actually lost a decoration as soon as I moved out, and I wasn’t that surprised! So yeah my role is usually to pay attention to all the small stuff that everyone else would not.”
How has being an artist changed how you see yourself, art, & the world?
“ Being an artist is how I process the world and understand the things that happen around me. Everything I do, I do and process through an artistic perspective.”
How did your open mic series “If All The Tree’s Were Pens” came about?— from title to location to initial purpose— and what does it mean to you to be able to hold said space?
“So I served as Montgomery County’s Youth Poet Laureate in 2021, and at that time I did not know how to facilitate space for people to gather, or for creative people to share their gifts, but I really wanted to, and not just for poetry, but various creative mediums.”
Sasa explains that she went through several kinds of trial and error during her YPL run, trying to aquire a space and obtain the proper resources to host an open mic but she had no desire to give up.
“Toward the middle of 2021, I met Sammy Miranda, the Director of The American Poetry Museum, and he told me that if I wanted, the museum could be a space to host an open mic, and it seemed like the perfect choice! The name comes from an excerpt from the Quran - Luqman 27 - “If all the trees on earth were pens and the ocean were ink, refilled by seven other oceans, the Words of Allah would not be exhausted. Surely Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.” I loved this idea ; if everyone had access to creativity, what could human beings do with that?
How do you manage caring so deeply about others and the state of the world and not letting yourself get lost in the madness of it all? If, & when, you do get lost, how do you find your way back to yourself?
“I can often be very impacted by the world, crying over genocides and gun murders by police who experience no consequence. Making art helps me deal with and process all these emotions. My work is a way to be a voice for justice, my way of at least doing something. Faith also helps tremendously, believing in people, believing in God. These two quotes actually sum up how I keep my head above water pretty well:
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
- Martin Luther King Jr
“Resistance is not about what we achieve, but what it allows us to become” - unknown
With creating from various mediums like sculpture & writing, would you say for every creative process there are distinct differences but also unique similarities?
“I actually have synesthesia, which is a kind of brain processing where the brain often mixes up the senses, so I find it very easy to translate one medium or idea into another. I think of them as all being very similar. My approach to all of these artforms is the same- start with an idea, think about how to best communicate it, and then go from there. I can say that painting, drawing, and printing are all very much the same to me, including the process, repeatedly taking away or adding the strokes of color to the piece that are needed. “
How would you say your artistic communities have positively impacted your daily life?
“I would say they helped me find my voice! These communities raised me. Thanks to these communities, I learned to how communicate and interface with the world. My artistic identity lives in D.C. D.C. has impacted how I make connections, and how I want to collaborate with people. It’s everything!”
What do you want you see more of in the future?
“I’m a deep believer in the healing of creative and collaborative spaces. Artists are the movers and shapers of culture, so I want young poets' voices to be heard. I want all artists to be heard. I want justice for all!”
