Kassandra Khalil

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ARTIST STATEMENT:

“prop·er

/ˈpräpər/ adjective

  1. truly what something is said or regarded to be; genuine
  2. of the required type; suitable or appropriate.

My mother used to make me copy down sections of the dictionary when I told a lie. She said that writing down each line exactly, taking down honestly what the page said, would teach me what it meant to be straight with people. To be a proper young lady. To sit up right. To keep your feet on the floor. To not make obvious your discontent.

My mother Esther learned this version of womanhood from her mother Marie, a serious but kind woman who, after her husband passed away, raised the rest of her nine children as a seamstress in Port-au-Prince. My mother brought herself to the US in her twenties and learned what it meant to be a proper American woman in 70s New York. To still sit up straight, but to make it sexy, to make yourself for yourself. I believe both of these women were being honest when they taught me these versions of propriety. They believed that this would make me strong, allow me to be received by others as respectable and worthy. What they did not know is that I skipped whole sections of the dictionary.”

Photograph of the artist
Courtesy of Claire Judine Saintil
BIO:

Kassandra Khalil is a visual artist and arts organizer.

Her work often uses irregular surfaces such as vellum paper or plant materials, coupling the texture or translucence of a surface’s negative space as “memory space” to remember, imagine, or construct wider narratives.

Born in Queens but raised in Tampa, Florida, Kassandra considers herself a returned New Yorker and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @khametri or view her website here.