EP 3: Art, Research, and Resistance with Yasmeen Khayr

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hello. Hi, everyone.

[00:00:04]Salaam.

[00:00:06]You're listening to Heart of the Matter, a podcast by Heart to Grow, a reproductive and gender justice organization working in Muslim communities and the older sibling you can [music] trust. We are your host. I'm Sabreena Mohammad. And I'm Amatullah Salaam. We hope you enjoy this episode.

[00:00:22]Today, we are with Yasmin Khair, a long-time friend of Heart. She has been a research coordinator at the Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University Chicago since 2019. [music] She has conducted community-based research and evaluation at CURL, often around gender-based violence, [music] housing, and social service provision.

[00:00:41]Many of these projects in collaboration with Heart, so yay. Over the last few years, Yasmin has also engaged in more community art making, facilitating art workshops in Chicago, co-creating art designs with Heart, [music] and is now pursuing her degree in art therapy.

[00:00:56]Amatullah, before we get [music] Yasmin on the podcast, I really want to talk about weddings and summer [music] destination Muslim wedding destination Muslim summer destinations. [music] How do we feel about Muslim summer destinations? Do you [music] think it's repetitive? Do you think wedding destinations are becoming repetitive right now for Muslim communities? Why is everybody going to like Malaysia and like Mexico? Can we be more creative? Am I being a hater? It's okay. I've never come across like a Muslim dest- I don't know where we're going. I don't know what the destination is, actually.

[00:01:36]>> [music] >> But with vacations, I feel like every year, everyone chooses the [music] same country to go to. I don't know what you think, Yasmin. But like, one year be Turkey. [music] Everyone's in Istanbul.

[00:01:47]And I think Turkey got a little bit more expensive, so people are going a little further into Asia and going to Central Asia, Uzbekistan. I'm seeing a lot of people like wake [music] up that Silk Road fantasy. Morocco is like a staple though. And Morocco has always been a staple.

[00:02:05]So, I feel like that one's not changing.

[00:02:07][music] But, every summer I'm like, "Where are we going? Like, >> [laughter] >> where is everybody going?"

[00:02:12]So, I can play catch up in the winter when the >> [music] >> tickets are cheaper. Yeah, I feel I feel the same about the Silk Road fantasies with the Muslim community. And it's always the brothers. You don't see the sisters involved in reviving no [music] Muslim history fantasies. We just want to live this reality and, you know, engage [music] at this reality. But, the brothers want to escape and go back to historical [music] times.

[00:02:39]But, the reason I brought the weddings as well, I feel like the honeymoon destinations [music] determine summer destination for Muslims.

[00:02:50]And I've seen this a trend.

[00:02:52]Mhm.

[00:02:53]So, we're copying the newlyweds. We're going once they come back and review.

[00:02:59]I think [music] so. I've seen like the the Turkey trend, I think, started by like honeymooners back in like [music] the 2010s.

[00:03:08]Um Yeah, we we just copy-paste. As long as you're not going to Dubai, y'all, we'll give you a pass.

[00:03:14]>> [music] >> Yeah, that's the main one.

[00:03:18]Welcome, Yasmin. How are you today?

[00:03:21]Hi all. I am doing great. [music] Good to be here with you both. That's good. It's super exciting to be here with you today because, as you mentioned before in your intro, you've been a long-time collaborator with HEART, and most of our audience is actually familiar with your work, even if they're not familiar with you, because they'll have seen like the merch designs or read like The Burden of Sexual Violence in the Muslim Community Study, um and things like that. So, what about you though? Tell us about yourself and what brought you to research in public health and what types of things do you do outside of heart? Um well, thank you for having me.

[00:03:59]Um yeah, it's I've had a long long journey with heart now and it's really beautiful to sit here with you both and kind of take some time to reflect on that. I have been in the research space for probably over a decade now. I got my masters in sociology in 2019 but you know, doing a little bit of that work beforehand and I got to know heart through the Center for Urban Research and Learning. That was my first um introduction to it since heart has been a longtime collaborator with CURL since I think heart was founded. They always wanted um a little the research arm and the evaluation arm and uh CURL was a a partner from from the get-go. Um so, I was really lucky to you know, my first introduction to CURL was also an introduction to heart. So, those two have been intertwined for a long time for me and yeah, I've been able to do some really good research over the years with with both and I'm you know, but now I'm starting to pivot a little bit get more creative seeing just like how much we all need to be just need a little bit more oomph creatively to get us through some of the really hard times that we're all kind of witnessing and experiencing. So, yeah, I've been dabbling in more art making for myself and then getting into more um community-based art making as well doing a lot of art workshops in Chicago particularly around block printing and just being able to like be in the spaces with others creating and imagining and doing a little bit more outside of, you know, the academic space, outside of a very limited well also kind of can feel restrictive space in research and wanting something a little bit more fluid and reflective and emotionally impactful for folks has been really beautiful to kind of dive into. And yeah, now I'm getting another degree in in art therapy and hoping to make that transition um in the next year or so. So I'm excited to also see where all of this is kind of intertwining and just kind of continuing to build different skills that feel relevant and important to me and my communities.

[00:06:28]Um yeah.

[00:06:29]Yes, and you did like a block printing workshop with Heart and I feel like I think that was the first time I met you actually. So it's nice to see you're going to get back into that um and pursue I wanted to talk a little bit about you started at Heart and what made you kind of stay around for this time with Heart. But before we get to that, you actually did not respond to our summer Muslim destination wedding destination.

[00:06:57]Let's circle back to that and what are your thoughts? What do you think about the Muslim summer wedding destination?

[00:07:05]>> Yeah, you were talking about it and I was like immediately was like, oh yeah, all those weddings in Turkey.

[00:07:12]Everyone was in Istanbul for like years I feel like. And you talking about that summer fantasy killed me and that is just too much.

[00:07:23]But I feel like there's the emotional side of me is like, I I get it, you know, like we are stuck in this empire and want to get back to some semblance of like, where are our roots and, you know, having this fantasy of like, oh, it's all over there. And uh we can just fly back there and anywhere in that whole region and you know, have some kind of moment. I'm so I think also I've seen a lot more folks trying to actually have weddings in their homelands, which I think is like a beautiful thing and wish that for all of us and I knowing that it's really not possible for a lot of our communities across the Muslim world. Um so folks are able to do it, more power to you and that's a beautiful thing.

[00:08:13]>> [laughter] >> But it is a little like I don't I've never gone to destination wedding really. Uh not in the Muslim world, so invite me. I'm ready to go. You guys heard it here. Invite Yesmean to your next Muslim destination wedding Silk Road fantasy trip.

[00:08:32]He's there.

[00:08:33]Just going back to talking about your engagement with HEART. You talked a little bit about how you started working with HEART um and when you learned about HEART specifically due to the collaborations that they have with Curl, but what kept you sticking around, what kept you coming back to HEART? I think at the time that I was really getting into actually like collaborating with HEART, I heard about HEART, but there weren't like opportunities yet when I had started at Curl for me to jump onto a project. But I kept like waiting and hoping that I'd be put on a project with them and then when I finally was able to do a little bit of research, I think at the time we were doing like um HEART had just done some sexual violence 101 workshops on college campuses and HEART was evaluating those and kind of going through some of the interviews that HEART had conducted with folks that were uh participants, students on those campuses um and I was really excited at that point getting I was in my masters program for sociology and I think every academic has that dream of wanting to do research in with their communities and and doing the work that like there's not a lot of research on X or Y community and for me that was with Muslims and so to be able to like actually do research work that I was getting my degree for and also doing it with Muslims. I didn't care about the topic.

[00:10:06]I didn't really know anything about sexual violence or sexual health education at the time or even a lot around gender-based violence and so that was a really beautiful opening for me to be able to you know get my hands in some of the work that heart was doing and seeing like that it just looked like a an opportunity for me of like oh this is what my future in research could look like of doing collaborative community-based research with and for Muslims with other Muslim researchers and folks that are just interested in these topics and so on that end that was a really beautiful like oh like this is the niche that I was looking for and like I could dive into it and then at the same time I'm also learning so much around gender-based violence, sexual violence and so that got me digging deeper into my in my degree at that point around you know sociology of gender and and all those kind of things but I think also like it was such a radically new space for me to hear particularly Muslim women really leaning into some of the hardest parts and challenges that our communities face and seeing folks really like be unapologetic about leaning into all of that and and trying to at that point using research and and things like that to kind of just tell the story of what's going on in our communities. And that just landed really beautifully for me.

[00:11:47]And over the years like we've been able to collaborate on a lot of different projects together. Our our big burden study, but also was for me at that time I was getting you know, I was not in college anymore. I was getting I was finishing up my masters and wanting community and so not really feeling that connected to like the MSAs even during undergrad and so like to have, you know, a spiritual home with heart was really important at that at that at that time for me.

[00:12:19]Um and to meet other Muslim women that were like actually values aligned and and and as and knew it knowing that heart was a place where I could grow spiritually and have that connection when I wasn't really having that connection with other masajids and and MSAs and other Muslims that I was having interactions with.

[00:12:37]That became a really big part um of why I stayed with heart and um just loving all the ethos of it and knowing that I could also seeing the support that they they give to everyone that they work with.

[00:12:51]And at a certain point I knew that like this was a relationship that would be long-term and that I could keep coming back to and I could keep leaning into. And and now I'm like it's really clear for me like I could be doing anything and heart would be like, yeah, let's let's pull you in in this way and that way and whatever whatever you're interested whatever skills you're gaining, let's incorporate it. And I think that's also just, you know, such a embodiment of like we're really holding the people that we're connected with and this is how you build um you know, community and and the networks that are um important for the collective Muslim communities um across the board. Um and really seeing folks like you have that skill, you have that dream, you have that idea, let's pour into it. Um and who's going to say no to that? Just a fun fact to the listeners, um Yasmine created the cover art for this podcast.

[00:13:54]So if you have any, you know, small business or you want logos for your blog or just just contact. She's mashallah like talented and will will definitely get you something uh beautiful for your website or your Instagram page. Thank you, Yasmine.

[00:14:14]Moving on to um thinking about your multi-disciplin- disciplinary training in sociology, anthropology, history.

[00:14:24]She's a Spanish speaker, y'all, not just Arabic and English, multilingual, mashallah.

[00:14:30]I'm just thinking about all those experiences, how does that background shape the research that you were doing at Curl in collaboration with Heart. Um yeah, just tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean I think for little Yasmine 10 years ago, um who just was excited to to be in school and really be a student and um just wanting to lean into all the different things that I found interesting and um pulled on different parts of my brain.

[00:15:07]Um and I think I'm very grateful that I struggled through the triple major and then master's pretty quickly after that. Um and how I'm getting another degree.

[00:15:19]Um I think it's just an it's a testament to you know, trying to expand my mind as much as possible. Um and you know, research has a lot of like, you know, the academic space can be problematic in all the different ways that it can be.

[00:15:42]Um and all those different backgrounds, all the different kind of fields that I kind of tapped into kept me humble, I think, and like knowing that there's no one right way to approach any given topic. Every any given problem. Um and you know, it didn't phase me either that Hearts of Public Health uh organization and I had I had no connection to public health.

[00:16:14]And so, I think that's you know, an important thing to lean into of like, if we're going to combat any problem, having as many perspectives and as many approaches that we can because we're never going to have a one-size-fits-all solution. And this is also kind of, you know, what I've gained a lot from Curl is that a lot of the times we're doing work that we don't necessarily have expertise in.

[00:16:40]Our expertise are in general approaches to research, but we're trying to be adaptive to all the lived experiences and and expertise that were that our partners have. And so, that keeps us also at at a in a in a space where we're not where I'm not wanting to impose my own ideas onto any given subject, if it's especially if it's one that's not directly impacting me. Gives us the space to really lean onto the folks that do have those lived experiences. Um and that was really pivotal to our work with HEART. We're working with survivors of sexual violence a lot of times, right?

[00:17:22]Like a lot of a lot of the work that we were doing.

[00:17:25]And for a community and and a population of folks that are systemically not believed to give them a space where actually we don't know any like at at this point we're have to come in with a a mindset of like we don't know.

[00:17:41]Um they're the the experts of their lives and their lived experiences and we're going to adapt things based on what they're sharing with us. Um and I think that is stems a lot from also my own perspectives on my my backgrounds, like the different things that I found it found interesting intellectually and that had to be translated practically when we're working with any any population that we're kind of wanting to uplift and have their voices heard and have their experiences um met with humility and kind of just being able to hold the weight of the those those experiences. Yeah.

[00:18:19]I love that because the multidisciplinary approach you described really connects with what HEART's philosophy that there's no one way of being Muslim. There's just so many different ways to practice Islam itself and then so many different identities that Muslim people have in in also in addition to um being Muslim. And I also want to respond what you mentioned earlier about HEART filling a gap because I feel like that's what I mean everyone at HEART kind of I feels that like there wasn't gap whether in research, whether in like the community that they're from being um like supported and acknowledged and incorporated in HEART's philosophy and offerings and things like that. So I love that you could find like not only a research home or a place where you do research on communities you care about also like a spiritual home home.

[00:19:08]>> Yes.

[00:19:08]So speaking about that, in 2024 HEART published Who experiences violence in the Muslim community and that looked like the prevalence of sexual violence among American and Canadian Muslims. Um So with regards to the burden study, I was wondering what was it like being involved in that and then as a follow up what was something like a statistics or an analysis that you did that surprised you? Yeah, that was a big project and I feel like we are still tapped into that project and that data.

[00:19:40]Um and that was one of the one of the first projects I did that was like really broadly collaborative. We had so many different folks on that project not just uh immediate faculty or staff but you know, a bunch of people from curl and then a bunch of other faculty across different universities. Um and pulling in gynecologists and other practitioners of different kinds to really do this really holistic um and comprehensive study that focused on not only sexual violence experiences but general approaches to or like people's experiences with their sexual health potentially any pain sexual pain or discomfort that they were experiencing their access to those like resources that can help them when they're engaging in or experiencing that kind of pain um and reactions to rape myths and and kind of like more of the perception piece of things. There was so much in there and it's actually it's a crazy long survey.

[00:20:49]There was so much um but that experience was really it taught me so much about one how we can do collaborative research and research that's really tied to the needs that were being seen and heard by heart um and survivors and trying to be really careful about how we put out a survey like that. Those are not easy questions to answer and to ask.

[00:21:17]Some of them are, you know, hardest violations that someone can experience.

[00:21:22]And so, really actually practicing what does trauma-informed research look like?

[00:21:27]Um, how can we engage um, folks that have experienced really hard things and in a way that's full of care and intention, while also having the research be a space where folks can like release some of that information. Cuz a lot of times folks are, you know, a lot of survivors do not report, do not share these experiences.

[00:21:50]And so, you know, what is an anonymous space in a survey?

[00:21:54]What can that do for folks um, that want to share that information?

[00:21:59]And then just having having any research around sexual violence in Muslim communities, that was a really, like, there are not a lot out there, y'all, like, in terms of really comprehensive research studies um, around the the prevalence of sexual violence in Muslim communities in the West. And so, there were so many things that were felt really like um, wild to be able to contribute to.

[00:22:26]Um, but it was really hard and it also overlapped during the pandemic. And so, we had to also consider so many different things in terms of recruitment and how we're reaching folks when folks are shut down due to COVID and the pandemic, while also wanting to make sure that we're reaching a breadth of of Muslim experiences. Um, and that we're engaging with some of our most marginalized siblings in in our Muslim communities, including Black Muslims and queer Muslims and um, Muslims that are experiencing, you know, low um, you know, financial risks of some kind.

[00:23:01]Um, so trying to do that while also not being able to like see people in real life and and really engage with folks.

[00:23:09]So, we have to be really creative, too, with how we were trying to connect with as many people as possible and and across different spheres as possible.

[00:23:17]Um, but also knowing that like this is the first of its kind, so it's going to have limitations and we kind of had to just accept that piece of it and move with as much as we could best practices as we could and also learn so much um in that process.

[00:23:35]And, you know, a lot of people responded to it.

[00:23:39]A lot of people took that survey.

[00:23:41]Um, maybe we didn't reach the the max number that would have been great for statistics and and whatnot, but we reached hundreds of people across the country. Um, and what's most surprising, but not not quite surprising, it just is was a a heavy thing to like hold in in the some ways was most our numbers tell us that most almost all of our of our participants who took that survey experienced some form of sexual violence. And that could be sexual harassment, could be sexual assault, it could be all sorts of different things in between.

[00:24:16]So, it's you know, the full spectrum, but almost every single participant experienced some kind of violence in that way.

[00:24:25]And that's a hard thing to to sit with.

[00:24:29]And it's also a hard thing to not dismiss because I think I mean, we've had multiple, you know, reviewers when we were trying to publish that were like "How do you have 98% you know, of your your your participants experiencing violence?" I was like I don't know what to tell you. Like, that's what happened.

[00:24:45][laughter] That those are the folks that wanted to take the survey.

[00:24:48]And we could spend all day talking about from an academic and and, you know, sociological and uh background and then dive into what that all means statistically and research and from like a research lens, but at the end of the day, all of these people experienced some kind of harm and they wanted a space to to share that.

[00:25:09]That's kind of how a lot of us had to wanted to uplift that and acknowledge that without it being this like, you know, dismiss dismissed thing because just because everyone in that survey experienced it, um doesn't mean it's a bad bad statistic.

[00:25:28]Um it's just telling us that folks really needed to to share this.

[00:25:33]Um and yeah, they may have self-selected to be in this study and that's going to, you know, skew with different data points and blah blah blah blah.

[00:25:42]But at the end of the day, like these are people and they all experienced this kind of harm and what are we going to do about it?

[00:25:49]Um so, it shed a lot of light on a lot of the ways that that sexual violence in our communities and and it's just a jumping off point. It's like, okay, there's still so much more we can interrogate and investigate and challenge, but to be able to just have a general baseline of kind of some semblance of information of what's going on nationally across various different communities and within the larger Muslim community in the West, like there's a lot there that we have now like a responsibility to to respond to. We still keep looking at that data.

[00:26:23]Like there's so much information there that, you know, needs to be shared and and um recognized and acknowledged and and then used as a way to prevent, hopefully, these experiences of violence in our communities.

[00:26:36]>> Yeah, I just want to mention a couple of things from the actual Burden study and the report that we published is that we're not making like one-to-one comparison. I think that's what people get to like stuck on a lot is that we're not saying like it's one-to-one comparison our sample data one-to-one comparison to national, you know, statistics of sexual violence, but what we are comparing is percentages, right?

[00:27:03]So, we had close to 800 respondents in the survey. And like Yasmine mentioned, it's a sample that, you know, self-selected themselves to talk about their experiences.

[00:27:16]Um and that could be the reason why everybody who looked at the analysis started to freak out when they saw like 98% of our sample experiencing sexual violence of some sort, right?

[00:27:32]But, I think it, like Yasmine mentioned, it does paint a picture of what's happening in the community and also kind of what we possibly need to start doing, kind of like offering, this is just a snapshot of one sample that was done in 2020. If we do that study right now, we might get different statistics, different, you know, larger samples, maybe a smaller sample.

[00:28:01]But, I think for me it's just recognizing that the issue is in the community, the issue is prevalent in the community.

[00:28:10]It's just that the folks that responded to the survey found that maybe like a way to express something that happened.

[00:28:19]Um and to me personally, one of the statistics, and I don't remember specifically the data point, but it was the Muslim men who, you know, in the survey said that they experienced a form of sexual violence. When we looked at that data point in comparison to the national sexual violence um data, our data point was percentage-wise higher than national data points of men that experienced any form of sexual violence. So, this is not just the Muslim women issue. This is not just a gender expansive Muslim person issue, not a queer Muslim issue. It's a widespread issue that we really need to figure out how to talk about it, but also how to do proper interventions so things do not fester long in in the community. So, yeah, just just wanted to to bring some of those points to to the audience. Yeah, and to kind of move away from research into design. I know that was heavy with like the statistics and everything and it's all available on our website if you want a more in-depth, you know, information on recruitment and things like that. But to talk about your design, you mentioned before that you've been designing for a long time. You made a lot of merch pieces. Can you tell us about your artistic journey and how you began creating? Yeah, it's funny that you're referencing my design which I feel like is not something that I'm usually like self-proclaiming.

[00:29:47]>> [laughter] >> I think the calling myself an artist is kind of a newer thing for me. I think looking back at my artistic journey, I think I've always been creative like from when I was a kid, but, you know, my studies always took priority. And it wasn't really until I finished school and just had time to myself and felt like I had a lot of feelings and things that I didn't really know what to do with and that I lean in leaned into art making again. And I was lucky to have friends that were also really artistic and and exposing me to so many different kind of different art making mediums and and tools and things like that. But it really wasn't until the genocide in Palestine that like really pushed me in towards my really like centering my creativity and art making more practice-oriented way because I, you know, something as horrific as a genocide and and seeing our siblings really violated in in actually the most depraved of ways.

[00:30:48]Words, research, you know, none of that really felt good for me at that time.

[00:30:53]And tapping into the, you know, the emotional experience of witnessing that kind of harm and feeling like, you know, the grief of everything that was happening that is happening. I knew that I needed to make art. Like that was my first response to a lot of what we were witnessing. And luckily, I was starting to have, you know, a wider network of friends, too, that were also, you know, wanting to tap into kind of just the emotional salve that that art can be.

[00:31:22]And at that time, I was also like feeling really stuck at work and stuck in like this research space and needing something, knowing I needed to move out of that in a different way and more seriously considered moving into art therapy and wanting to become an art therapist. And so, I had a lot of lot more outlets at that point to create. I was taking more art classes. And at that point was really able to collaborate with a lot of my friends and community members around creating spaces that where folks could just be themselves, grieve what was happening, and create art as a way to just move some of those feelings and collective grief that we were all holding. And I loved it. Like it was so nourishing at a time that everything felt so awful that I wanted to keep feeding that energy and found it really beautiful to be able to create when so much was being destroyed. And really putting energy into our own abilities to like imagine more for for ourselves and our communities. Um and art making felt like that. Like a a real skill that we had to nurture. And so, I was able to just like jump into, you know, what's what art skills do I have?

[00:32:32]What am What am I interested in right now?

[00:32:34]What could be something that could inspire other folks in our communities to one release a lot of the like and experience like these the like collective emotions that were coming up for us especially around grief and also what could art do in terms of allowing ourselves to resist a lot of the narratives and despair that we were told we had to sit in. So I really just loved being able to also just have a role at that time through art making as an artist, as someone that just wanted us to be creative again as a way to to resist what was kind of happening. And from there I was able to connect with a lot more cultural organizers and folks that are trying to really uplift cultural preservation and also seeing the intersection of community organizing and art making and where the role of art and design can really uplift the more nitty-gritty like strategy for resisting empire and resisting oppressive systems.

[00:33:32]Now I'm, you know, moving into more of the art therapy space and seeing like allowing myself to experience like even more ways that like art can be so specific and how it can facilitate different conversations and can facilitate our ability to feel different things also as a way to honor and and recognize ways that it can help us build our relational skills. Like there's so much of our relational interpersonal skills that have been just disconnected constantly and that's purposeful um by a lot of these systems is to disconnect us from each other, from ourselves, from our bodies. Yeah, I just I wanted wanted to move into how can we use art as a way to bring these connections back and and amplify some of the skills that were severely lacking and needing to rebuild right now. Yeah, I've just been loving the plethora of ways that art making at this point can nourish us. Yeah.

[00:34:32]And I love that because I feel like you know, a lot of us being from countries that are kind of unstable, you can see what's going on and kind of be like, "Dang, I'm not doing anything.

[00:34:42]Just sitting at my desk writing whatever I'm writing or doing whatever I'm doing or reposting whatever Instagram graphics or whatever it is that um that are circulating. So, I love that like you're able to move into your art um as a way of political expression. And obviously, since Heart, you know, is also woke, right? So, you've made pieces for us like stay accountable to God, not the state, that kind of reflect that orientation, and acknowledge like some of the harms that our country that we're actually living in perpetuates to siblings, family members abroad. So, I love that you mentioned that. And speaking of like the pieces you've made for Heart, one of my favorite pieces by you is the Respond with Rahma design.

[00:35:24]So, there's one hand holding up another hand, and then there's like this beautiful watercolor background that like actually corresponds to Heart's like color palette and color theme. Um so, I was wondering, what's the inspiration behind this piece? I know Respond with Rahma is something that we always say, but like how did you come about like visualizing it like that?

[00:35:46]Yeah, that's one of my favorite pieces, too. And I think the Respond with Rahma is also one of the first things I was exposed to when I was connected with Heart. I feel like that was their main core message that was really coming up for Heart when I first connected with them. And so, it felt beautiful to like come back to it after many years and and think about like how to create a design for it and not just something that's like, you know, I don't even think we really had imagery for that that message beforehand. And so, it was a beautiful opportunity to think about like, "Okay, I've done all this work with Heart, and we've constantly pulled up this message of responding with Rahma, and like thinking about it from like what we've heard from folks within the research, within you know, just anecdotal experiences that are happening um with folks that are interacting with heart. And so much of it came back to like, you know, believing survivors and responding in a way that's really care forward. And for me that just felt like, you know, warmth. Well, I wanted something that could embody some of that warmth that is often needed in times when folks are looking for a place to disclose or to someone to lean on in a time of, you know, distress and after violence. Like, you know, there's often nothing to really say. It's really just kind of being able to sit and be with someone in in that time. Obviously, there are things that we can do afterwards, but I think like in that immediate moment of like someone, you know, coming to you and disclosing, wanting to really capture this emotion of like someone just being there with you. I just really like drawing hands. So, I obviously I really leaned on that piece.

[00:37:27]>> [laughter] >> And I love watercolors. So, I'm like, well, I'm doing this. But, I think like wanting to have these arms that are really like tightly holding on to one another like and not just like the fingers, but like entire arm like where that there's like stable support and not just like a little reach out, but like I'm going to actually be here for you and I'm going to walk with you in this time of like distress and really hard emotional time and physical time like you know. And so, I thought of that image and I was trying to like get a reference photo. And so, I asked my parents, can you, you know, for them to to do that pose?

[00:38:08]>> Aw, that's so cute. Which was really cute. And yeah, I just like came out and it was it's been fun to also, you know, have the watercolor version and then I made a block printed version that's also really beautiful. And just being able to like play with what does it mean to to really show up for each other with the something as big as mercy that we're pulling from like this divine mercy, right? Like we're talking about Rahman in this really big way that's coming from our traditions, our Islamic traditions, and coming from the ways that we've been the Allah has told us to that he will come to us with in that mercy. And how are we going to do that? How are we embodying that for ourselves with each other? I think was being able to put that into a piece and have it seeing how much it's resonating with people and and has been really beautiful. And for me like personally feeling like a almost like a full circle moment of like, "Ooh, this is what I kind of came into heart with and what I really loved about heart." And now I'm able to kind of pour in back into that message in a creative way and in a way that expands the reach of of that message reminding us of of how we how we all can embody that kind of Rahman and mercy and compassion. I think it was just it's been a really an honor to to work, you know, pour into that.

[00:39:24]>> Just reflecting on that responding with Rahman piece, I literally just thought about the as you were talking about like you creating it, um, I thought about that hadith that I don't know the exact hadith, but the prophet, peace be upon him, said like believers and their mutual love are like one body, right? And that's kind of what the like the two hands holding each other kind of represents is that like, you know, with mercy and compassion, mutual love, believers are like one body. And if it's one part of this body is aching, the entire body is aching, right? With fever. And that's kind of like thinking about I mean, to see like the the ummah right now and like thinking about what's going on internally and what's happening externally to Muslim people and Muslim bodies, it really made me reflect on that hadith as you were talking about your journey in developing that piece for heart. But before we say our goodbyes to Yasmine, I want to ask, do you have any summer reading recommendations, reality TV recommendations?

[00:40:28]>> [laughter] >> You know, any like um artists, you know, albums, anything you have for the audience before we say our goodbyes. Well, I'm going to walk it over to my stack of books.

[00:40:41]But I've been reading Take Care of Yourself by Sundus Abdul Hadi, which is it's the art and cultures of care and liberation.

[00:40:49]And this has been a really beautiful like feels like a summary of kind of a lot of what I've been sharing with you all of like the role that art can have in political times um in resistance. So folks are wanting to tap into more of that like art making in cross with resistance and and liberation movements like I would suggest that. I'm also wanting to read Decolonizing Therapy because there's a lot of things in the therapy world that are not great or very white centered and so that's what I'm going to be reading this summer and I don't think one more that >> Aw, your cat.

[00:41:20]My cat is here. So this is really pretty. I know. I wish I was a cat person. Yes. Ooh, another one that I love to share with folks is Who is Wellness For by Fariha Róisín and that's a really lovely book that kind of confronts the wellness industrial complex, thinks about how we how we approach wellness outside of a very white centered lens. So those are some recs. I have more but we'll we'll stick to that. I don't watch reality TV, so that's you're not going to get that from me. Sorry. No Summer House? Nah. Nah, it's not for me. But I will uplift the the albums that I'm listening to. I've been listening to BTS's Arirang. It's a banger, y'all. If you just want to dance, listen to that. And we have like K-pop lovers on our team, so I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

[00:42:13]>> Yes.

[00:42:14]>> [laughter] >> Raye's new album is a masterpiece.

[00:42:17]>> Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

[00:42:20]I just like it's just a masterpiece.

[00:42:22]That's it. It's It's biracial summer.

[00:42:24]I'm kidding.

[00:42:25]>> It is. It is. I'm dead. It is. And, you know, I know it's kind of old now, but Olivia Dean's, you know, album, ugh, just beautiful.

[00:42:37]Bangers, bangers, bangers. I haven't even listened to BTS. It's a good time.

[00:42:42]I think you'd like it.

[00:42:44]I'm an old K-pop head.

[00:42:46]>> I'm an old K-pop fan, so this is like bringing me back. I'm like, is this Is it 2016?

[00:42:51]My journey with K-pop started when I was in middle school, like '07.

[00:42:57]>> Yes. Second generation.

[00:43:01]>> So, wow. I know.

[00:43:03]Yeah. [laughter] We're old, y'all. We're old. Thank you for the recommendations, Yasmine. It was really, really great talking to you. Thank you so much for like always being around and always supporting Hard, and always like uplifting our work. And, like you said, what whatever you do, you're always going to be tapped into this community, and we really, really love your art. We really enjoy everything that you do for, you know, uplifting all the things that's happening in the world through your art.

[00:43:36]And, I know it can be really hard. I know it can be really challenging, especially with everything we're experiencing right now, but like you said, art can be a way to express creativity, but also heal and deal with that grief um that I feel like we are communally sharing a lot of grief right now. So, thank you so much for spending time with us. Thank you for having me. And, we'll always be Hard's number one fan. So, I'll be around.

[00:44:06]Aw, well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Heart of the Matter. If you're interested in learning more about Yasmine's work, follow her on Instagram at finding Khidr. Also, visit our website to see the merch that she designed, the research projects that she worked on to help us implement it at Heart, and we will link everything in our following Substack. Yes, so let us know if you have any thoughts, comment on the episode below or on our Instagram or DM us, whatever. Let us know what you think, and check out our Substack Nakhlah for our reflections from this episode. And if you haven't already, follow us on our Instagram at Heart to Grow to stay in contact and keep in touch. We have a lot of amazing comps coming up, you guys, this summer. It's going to be bangers. Okay, stay stay stay updated, okay?

[00:45:01]Bye.

[00:45:02]>> Yes, bye.