When I think of Zina Al-Shukri’s rich and overflowing practice, I imagine her sitting calmly with a silent smile on a massive boulder in an ancient canyon, surrounded by wind, knowing, and the desert. Rooted in an ancient lineage yet unbound by tradition, Al-Shukri’s work embodies an expansive interplay of all the elements, harmonized to evoke magic through creation. With a foundation in indigenous Babylonian heritage and a life shaped by migration and challenges, her practice consistently defies the conventions of the patriarchal art world and outdated Eurocentric paradigms.
Her work reveals a dynamic interplay between body, mind, and cosmic energy, inseparable from her devotion to truth and process. This transformative force fuels her ability to create spaces and works that heal, connect, and transcend. In her spiral dance of spirituality, creativity, and resilience, Al-Shukri reminds us of art’s enduring power to change the world. Let’s join her dance.
Which of these elements (space, air, fire, water, earth) would you choose in relation to your practice and/or yourself, and why?
For me, space is the defining element, as it engulfs and permeates all the other traits that we know of, even though it doesn’t exist.
The fire in me is a constant flow of ideas and inspiration coursing through my being, the earth keeps me solid and devoted to my numerous visions, and the water taps me into my psychic awarenesses. The air has been coming online for me over the past year since I started making music again with new collaborators. I really enjoy this. All the elements are available.
When I harmonize them, I become the flow, that’s when the magic happens, the magic of process, of just creating through breath, body, and energy.
It’s beautiful and expansive, like space.
Please share with us the relevant details, about your cultural heritage and how it influences your work and life today. Maybe there are also personal memories from your past in regards to this that play into your body of work?
I am indigenous Babylonian, born in Baghdad, raised all over the Southern U.S., Midwest, and California.
My ties to this earth run deep. Iraq has a very rich, complex and multi layered history. Go back even further and we have an ancestral potency that runs deep in me and the bones of my people. My past is one of war, displacement, xenophobia, and sexism, but also one of discovery, connection, evolution and expansion. My roots are pliable, I am a roaming tree, the only stability I have comes from within. My practice is a reflection of this, a continuously transformational process that will never be pinned down or put in a box, yet deeply rooted in persistent, methodical practice. I make what I want when I want and this feels very liberating to me.
My body and the work it produces is only an extension of my creative process. I am creating my reality with every single breath.
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The whole system of the so called Art world/market is deeply rooted in patriarchal, Eurocentric and therefore exploitive structures, survival seems the norm for most artists who try not to comply with it. Can you share your experience and view on this?
My whole life, my body has been a target of the (western) patriarchal systems that have been running this world. This was very obvious to me as a child, became even more prevalent after 9/11, and then grew even more pronounced after October 2023. As our systems crumble, we still have yet to separate the politics from the body. An individual’s politics will always reveal their true nature.
And the true nature of the art world and it’s market was built on the old paradigm of hierarchy, capitalism and extraction.
I will not play with the art world because it was a game invented devoid of integrity and I refuse to enter into spaces that were not intended for me, that do not care about my existence. And so I create my own spaces for myself and other likeminded people.
It has been extremely challenging at times going against the status quo, but my authenticity and stubborn heart have led me to my own version of what I see as a successful life and creative career.
How do you see your role as a human and artist in these late stages of capitalism and in our fight for worldwide decolonization?
I am a healer through my lineage. My matriarchal great grandmother was the village medicine woman and midwife. Her daughter, who also became a midwife, used to take my mother on birth calls starting at an early age.
Decolonization starts at birth.
Bringing a being into this earth as gently and well supported as possible, for both mother and child may be the most underestimated, crucial move humanity has missed.
On a psychological level, decolonization begins with the reverence and care for women, children and earth.
At its spiritual core, decolonization is the re-teaching of reverence and care for the Earth, because after all, we are merely an extension of Her.
How we treat Her is how we treat ourselves and vice versa.
My work, whether it’s through painting, sound, relationships, intuitive guidance, grid work, music, writing, dance, tarot, intuitive astrology, channeling, truth telling, ceramics, oneiromancy all serve as devotions that lead to the same location, that place of interconnectedness.
Artificial Intelligence already is but will shape literally our reality which is at this point nearly impossible to grasp and now in its extent – can you share your thoughts on this matter?
Given the very nature of AI, it is a very mind oriented entity. We all know that the mind is easily programmable, but the body is not, therefore it knows best. The oppressive systems have done a very successful job of separating our minds from our bodies, and AI can potentially further this agenda.
I honestly can’t say how it will alter our reality, but what I do know is that one of the most important decisions we can make as humans is to really ground down into our bodies and the earth.
AI will further the spiritual warfare that is at play right now and it will potentially boil down to the relationship between the body and mind, between the feminine and the masculine energies, the magnetic and electric, the yin and yang, the negative and positive polarities. Balance is key.
How do you see AI play a role in the spiritual cycles and process of Gaia and humanity?
AI is going to show us, in a more logical way, what the collective consciousness is thinking. We already possess an inherent ability to tap into this, however, our egos are always looking for proof or facts of tangible evidence that we are in fact, confirming our biases.
It is possible that within the awareness of our duality we become more in tune with alternate realities, thereby allowing oneness to reside within the multiverse.
After all, Aquarius, or more appropriately, Uranus is the god energy, the life barer. Aquarius rules AI. We will be at the mercy of this fast moving, revolutionary, mind energy for the next 20 years and no matter what happens, we will see and experience things that have never existed before on this earth. How exciting!
Does spirituality inform your process in thinking and doing, how do you apply it?
My process is spirituality. Devotion is spirituality. Authenticity is spirituality.
The more we engage with devotion to our truth, our craft, the more embodied, and therefore empowered everything within us and around us becomes.
How can we imagine your process while creating work?
I am a lake spread wide, gazing up at the clouds. I watch and wait as the clouds and the air exchange information, not knowing exactly what is coming, but just know that it is. As the water changes it’s form, growing heavy and swelling with cosmic knowledge, the clouds surrender once again to fill the lake of my body, overflowing into rivers, creeks, tributaries and streams, gliding over and into the earth, creating sounds, markings and grooves on the surface of my being.
Everything that touches me, I water. I water everything I touch.
And so on, forever.
Aesthetics and Process aside, which emotions do you want to trigger with your craft and why?
The whole gamut of emotions!
Because we are here to feel it ALL
Can art change the world and if you think so do you have an example you encountered you want to share with us
Of course art can change the world. Art and social justice have always gone hand in hand. This is why during times of war and oppression, artists are some of the first people to become targets, we have the power to influence people’s hearts and minds.
I firmly believe imagination is stronger than reality. I often have found myself saying to the universe, ‘I want to help people heal through my art’ and I (almost immediately) receive affirmation of this through someone stating this to me after experiencing the work.
It’s lovely, being able to co-create with the universe in this way.
The future is .. ?
a clean slate for us to create whatever we want.
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Conductor: Esther Harrison