The Disinherited:
a counter-memorial to exile
The dowry money headdress is an artifact now lost to Palestinian culture. Fashioned after my mother’s faint memory of her grandmother’s, our collaborative effort constructs a memorial to our family’s continual migrations. Substituting the no longer minted Palestinian currency with coins embossed with our visas, passport stamps, and pictures suggests an intellectual dowry rather than a monetary or economic one. My inheritance is confined to the memories of my elders, teetering on the brink of obliteration.