sculpture + painting
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In my body, group exhibition of photography, Weiden and Kennedy Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2023.
Imagined Artifacts, solo exhibition of sculpture, kodō hotel, Los Angeles, 2022.
Queer as I
, group exhibition of photography, NYC, 2019.
Saatchi Selections x Girlboss x TUMI,
group exhibition of photography, NYC 2019.
MIA KRYS + LOVIE OLIVIA, duo exhibition of photography and sculpture, Guerrero Projects, Houston, Texas, 2018.
*Unexpected* juried international group exhibition of photography, PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, May 17 – June 9, 2018.

©2024 Mia Sadek. All rights reserved.


NOUVELLES / PROSE

stories from traffic in los angeles

I.

the stoplight at griffith park and los feliz boulevard is particularly long. here we all are at the same time, in the same hour, on the same day, at the same intersection. she wonders what the odds are of something like that. she wonders what else we might have in common. ears vibrating with nina simone’s rendition of you’d be so nice to come home to. smelling nothing, without much feeling. she signed her letter last night, “without time, x”. she thinks it sounds better than sincerely or warmly or love. she will probably never send it anyway, even though she used three of her most coveted stamps. she wonders how any mail makes it anywhere, especially to a cobbled alleyway in europe. finally, nina begins to sing. the stop light at griffith park and los feliz boulevard is unreasonably long. she must have heard this song twenty-five times. poor nina. most of the songs she’s heard she’s heard twenty-five times. most of the films she’s seen she’s seen twice. most of the people she’s seen she’s seen only once. why does it feel like memory serves everyone but her? how does memory serve anyone, anyway? she thinks she cannot remember a thing about her life. her mind has gone all blank inside. this is the third time in a week she’s been stopped in traffic for an unknown reason. the first was a parade on pico boulevard. she couldn’t remember the second but she knew it happened. she thinks she did not get enough sleep last night to be behind the wheel at this hour. the parade was oaxacan. there was dancing, there was pride. shiny black braids reflected the sun sharply like metal. she turned off her engine and sat as people began to leave their cars in the sweltering afternoon heat. some joined in the parade, pulled out their phones, recorded a long video they would surely never rewatch. she thinks of the collective digital graveyard of long, un-rewatched video recordings. some complained to officers. she guessed it depended on their type of personality. some people can’t have any fun, she thought. although she did not think it was very fun either. she wondered where they were all going that afternoon, or this morning. she looked inside each car and caught momentary glimpses. a man with a hat and crooked sunglasses reminded her of pico again. she pondered the odds that they all might have been at that same intersection at that same time on that same day. if you picked thirty-five people out of a hat of millions in los angeles, how could they all end up at pico boulevard at 5:18? or griffith park and los feliz boulevard at 9:26? the song is nearly over now. she wonders about those times when you see the same people out multiple places in a row that have no direct correlation. she wonders how we have all had that experience at least once, and yet we never talk about it. maybe it doesn’t seem important enough to talk about, but it is strange. maybe some things don’t mean anything. she remembers the letter she will never send again. pitied waste of stamps. she wonders what else we all have and don’t talk about.


II.

One morning I was driving down Beverly boulevard and stopped at a light at western. or was it wilton? I had been listening to Morgan Feldman’s ‘Why Patterns?’ on his Rothko Chapel album, and pondering a performance in which dance and experimental music were happening simultaneously. In the midst of my reverie and Feldman’s dissonant chiming, I spotted a traffic conductor in the middle of the road. It only took a moment for me to notice that he was extraordinary, because he seemed to be taking his job quite seriously. At first I thought it was amusing, like a mall cop who thinks his job of protecting the mall is a matter life and death, and then I realized how. beautiful. he. was. How silky his movements were, and were becoming more the longer I watched, and how silly I was, shameful even, for having found that kind of pride even slightly amusing in a traffic conductor. of course, I thought, of course he should be so.

He was tall, had thick, rimless, rectangular glasses, the dark body of a bronze sculpture under layers of beige polyester and reflector green mesh fabric, with the typical conductor’s hat and white gloves to match. I couldn’t tell if he was 25 or 52. Feldman’s dissonant piano strings were being struck at the top end as this man raised his arms like an eagle slicing the air with feathered blades to stop traffic in one direction, and then floated them back down in a perfect sine wave that seemed to move precisely from his shoulders all the way to the tips of his fingers to signal the flow in the other.

A dancer I thought -- no a military man. Perhaps both. He was so committed to each action, his stance strong and weighty, and yet his wingspan engaged with the air as if they were in perfect harmony, in love even. his arms were made for slicing through this air, I thought. I watched him move for several minutes, and when it came time for me, at the front of the line of cars, to go when the light turned green, I was utterly paralyzed. I felt that even if there was a barrel pressed to my temple I couldn’t move a muscle until he told me so. he was turned in the other direction with his hands still in the “stop” position, and although the light was green, no one yet moved. And just for a moment there were no thoughts, there was only morgan feldman’s piano chimes and stillness waiting for his cue.

When he finally turned our way, in one swoop like a bird of prey he gave a sharp head nod and swirling motion to go through, and I did.
as I crossed the threshold of the intersection and was thrust back into the day again, I said to myself aloud, “what an experience.”








people I’ve known / people I’ve not known
[accompanying Images not shown here]

In the unlikely event that the thoughts I am about to express should come to light, I want you to know that I recall registering the exquisite sphere of perceived certainty around you as you walked. It felt so real. The Pain was there, too. You were an expert on Pain, 
You had It all, bandaids, tissues, cigarettes, and a lighter. I recall the way a wish was your command. The way you thought you never made any decisions, couldn’t make any decisions, and yet you left that morning slipping your neck Into that shirt, each foot Into those shoes, trusting them. The way you looked In the mirror just before leaving and thought, here you are being you, dressed as you for the day. Still not entirely satisfactory for reasons you could not go into now, for now it would have to do.

I recall the sound your faded denim made. Like a sail, not that stretchy thin stuff. The way you took a tiny bit of pleasrure In your cigarette lighter dying becasue It gave you an excuse to take out a little aggression while cursing it into obedience.

Obedience being somehting that never really made it Into your repertoire of likes and understandings, but that you posessed and desired nonetheless.







POETRY



These walls bear no fruit

Where does it all go,

milking for eternity?

in a perfect world

these walls would have something to say

Used to take pictures to remember

where i’ve been

now I don’t go

I just look

at pictures

Want to start a fire watch it give

this place a story

These walls bear no fruit

but an inferno.











Sunlight 

what world Is this?
I ask
silent
eyes open soft
sunlight pressed on your hips

Is It something I can touch
the weight beneath your skin?
or Is it better left unfelt 
the way the past often Is?

tell me all your secrets 
you’ve smothered day and night
is there something I should know
or Is It better left unsaid?