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| mezaina mixtape vol. 1 . 2017 |
from last post's 'textile sisters' to my real sisters – here's a post dedicated to 3 special women. here's another project i worked on during my 'materiality and intimacy' course late last year. i created a mixtape of songs connected to memories of my sisters and family, while growing up in dubai during the late 80s and 90s.
music was very important in the mezaina household. when thinking about my family and years of childhood, there's always been music. i was born in 1985, the youngest after three sisters, and i have a fading recollection of interacting with their younger selves when we were all very young. but i do remember the music that was playing on the radio or on tv whenever they were around.
music was very important in the mezaina household. when thinking about my family and years of childhood, there's always been music. i was born in 1985, the youngest after three sisters, and i have a fading recollection of interacting with their younger selves when we were all very young. but i do remember the music that was playing on the radio or on tv whenever they were around.
between the 80s and 90s, my sisters took me everywhere they possibly could. i was constantly with them at home, in school and on various outings. growing up in dubai, which was still a humble city in its early beginnings, the exposure to popular culture from the west was very dominant. our acquired interests in the british and american pop charts was inevitable. i remember music playing in car rides to and from school, and coming together as a family to watch the latest music videos on tv. my sisters also began a tradition of recording their favourite music videos on vhs tapes, which now take up a huge corner in storage! there's no doubt that music evokes intimate memories of pleasant times when we did things together as a family.
i have acquired similar tastes of each of my sisters’ various musical interests. the mezaina mixtape vol. 1 is a homage to my sisters' love for music and the pop stars that defined the 80s and 90s. besides having immediate memories, they’re also great songs to listen to. the collected songs within the mixtape act as vignettes of personal memories i have of each song in relation to my sisters. hearing a particular song immediately takes me back to a specific moment from the past. these intimate memories slowly fade with age, yet listening to these recordings on a cassette tape feels like stepping into a time capsule, with sounds that are so specific to a particular era.
i dedicate this mixtape to my sisters, for being who they are and for what they mean to me. i haven’t made a mixtape since cassette tapes were relevant, so this was a trip down memory lane, reminding me of when i would watch my sisters make mixtapes of their own.
thank you for letting the music you love become the soundtrack to my life in good times and bad. to quote nan goldin who, in her book ‘the ballad of sexual dependency’, perfectly said – “ […] this is my party. this is my family, my history.”
happy listening (click on the memories below, which will direct you to the song attached to the selected memory).
the mezaina mixtape vol. 1
side a (the 80s)
side b (the 90s)