CEPA Gallery : Conversation Pieces

Mariam Ghani — Points of Proof

A photography, text and video installation based on a series of interviews conducted from 2007 through 2009 with groups of Buffalo residents, including 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East union members and students from Grover Cleveland High School. Project participants were asked to answer the following question: If someone questioned your right to call yourself an American, what is the one story, object, image or document you would offer as your proof? The objects participants brought in to be photographed, along with the conversations generated by the question, reflect the subjective and volitional nature of identity, the difficulty of pinning the constantly shifting idea of America within strictly national borders, and the question of proof as defined more by belief than by the material evidence at hand. The project also includes a web component (kabul-reconstructions.net/proof) and takeaway postcards.