We Count: First Time Voters
in collaboration with Frist Art Museum
in collaboration with Frist Art Museum
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My Existence is Political, 2019
Embroidery thread on fabric
Poem by Drenusha Kolshi
Translation by Mimoza Kolshi
Embroidery thread on fabric
Poem by Drenusha Kolshi
Translation by Mimoza Kolshi
"We Count: First-Time Voters honored the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment and the importance of civic engagement by highlighting the history of voting in the United States and the first voting experiences of a diverse group of Nashvillians. Five local artists created visual representations of these voting experiences in a variety of mediums."
Artist Statment: When I think of voter’s rights, I think of citizenship and legal identification. I am the daughter of immigrants. When my parents became citizens, it gave them a new identity, protection, security, and comfort. In this work, I weave a story from the perspective of someone who is going through the lengthy process of gaining citizenship. The figure on display is my friend Drenusha Kolshi. As a child, her family immigrated to America from Kosovo in 1999, fleeing a civil war. As an adult she recognized the privileges and comforts that come with becoming naturalized. My conversations with Drenusha inspired me to think about the ways in which individuals are identified within society. In this work, I wanted to visually mimic an ID portrait. Identifiers like height and nationality are not listed here. The poem, written by Drenusha herself, signifies the deeper personal lives that all people live—both immigrants and citizens. The embroidered portrait and the poem, considered together, represent the vast amount of expressive freedom that is afforded those with citizenship. These expressions not only define who we are as individuals, but as a collective whole, they are what makes our society great.
Artist Statment: When I think of voter’s rights, I think of citizenship and legal identification. I am the daughter of immigrants. When my parents became citizens, it gave them a new identity, protection, security, and comfort. In this work, I weave a story from the perspective of someone who is going through the lengthy process of gaining citizenship. The figure on display is my friend Drenusha Kolshi. As a child, her family immigrated to America from Kosovo in 1999, fleeing a civil war. As an adult she recognized the privileges and comforts that come with becoming naturalized. My conversations with Drenusha inspired me to think about the ways in which individuals are identified within society. In this work, I wanted to visually mimic an ID portrait. Identifiers like height and nationality are not listed here. The poem, written by Drenusha herself, signifies the deeper personal lives that all people live—both immigrants and citizens. The embroidered portrait and the poem, considered together, represent the vast amount of expressive freedom that is afforded those with citizenship. These expressions not only define who we are as individuals, but as a collective whole, they are what makes our society great.
