2005-2007

9×11 inches and 22×28 inches

Mixed Media on gessoed board

This series marks an early, foundational moment in Shikoh’s practice, one in which questions of visibility, belonging, and the quiet ethics of everyday life first take clear form. Created in New York and realized in mixed media, the work approaches the hijab not as an exoticized symbol but as a chosen, lived practice woven into motherhood, urban life, worship, and community care. It celebrates American Muslim identity from within, resisting reductive narratives and presenting the hijab as both intimate and public, a gesture of faith that coexists with individuality and civic presence. Read alongside her later work, the series already contains seeds of her ongoing concerns: objects as vessels of memory, spiritual life embedded in domestic and civic spaces, and images that witness without sensationalizing. Like Mending Grace and We Bear Witness, it invites ethical reflection gently, through the quiet poetry of what people choose to hold close, establishing an artistic language grounded in care, subtle critique, and attentiveness to how identity is practiced across bodies, homes, and communities.