Ali El-Chaer علي الشاعر

Collateral (Current)

Collateral is currently in progress. At this time the artist would like to invite you to explore the Free Alabama Movement (FAM) website.

Body (Current)

Body is a series of diptychs, measuring at 9’ high in completion, communicating specific events that have happened since October 7th, 2023. This series pulls inspiration from the Palestinian Poster Project to continue discussions long held in Palestinian art history. The goal for this project is to sit with these events more intentionally so that we do not become comfortable with the martyrdom of Palestinians and SWANA (South-West Asian and North Africans).

Since October

“My art on a larger scale deals with intense interpersonal emotions as well as storytelling and reclamation. In this case, my family are Melkites, another form of Orthodox. The deep desire to take back what has always been ours from the colonial narrative is more important than ever to me.”

–Revisiting Love Letters: An Interview with Ali El-Chaer, written by Yi Wei

Love Letters (Asian American Writer’s Workshop)

“The Love Letters folio, edited by Yi Wei, brings together twelve pieces of flash that capture several different perspectives, angles, and actions on loving in the world. “Rather than thinking about each of the stories in this folio as purely love stories, I ask you to consider how they use love to negotiate more difficult considerations about living in the world,” writes Yi Wei. Read her editor’s note for a guide to these stories.”

-Asian American Writers’ Workshop update after a year of publication of initial Love Letters folio, written by Yi Wei: Revisiting Love Letters: An Interview with Ali El-Chaer

Telling Women’s Stories

Telling Women’s Stories was first shown at Turnip Green Creative Reuse the first month of Covid lockdown in Tennessee. The series explores different women’s stories in literature who are often mischaracterized as sinful through lust, rage, or hysteria as a way to unravel the harm done to them. There was also the desire to have the audience seek further investigation about their views of these female leads or, in some instances, relate with them.