(Transcript) 37. Sarah Bahbah

37. Sarah Bahbah on

INTRO:

3,2,1..

We are back at our favorite hotel rooftop at citizenM on Bowery in New York City. I'm your host, Noor Tagouri, and welcome to the season two finale of Podcast Noor. It has been such a delight, asking questions and sharing stories with you all, and I’m so grateful for you sticking around. 

So for the season finale, I would like to take you into the dreamy world of one of our generation's most prolific artists. Sarah Bahbah is a Palestinian-Jordanian artist, and Director born and raised in Australia now living in Los Angeles. Sarah‘s photographs are the stuff dreams are made of: color, luxury, romance, heartache, endless curated food spreads and almost always, paired with a perfectly curated subtitle. Her photograph series often feel like films, and when she's in director mode sometimes they actually do become dreamy films.

When I first came across Sarah‘s work, I was mesmerized and had really big feelings. So when I learned that Sarah grew up in a culturally conservative Arab household, I knew the experiences that led her to make such provocative and bold art, or probably also really incredible stories. Sarah‘s work makes her viewers feel all the feelings because she feels all the feelings and photography, film and writing are mediums she uses to process everything. Sarah also comes from the ad world. She founded her creative agency Possy in 2016 and has worked with brands like Gucci, Conde Nast, Capital Records, Sony Music and GQ.

So with her expertise and keen eye, it is no wonder she’s garnered an Instagram audience of 1 million plus. My favorite series of hers is titled "3ieb!" which infamously is the Arabic word for "shame." This is also the first series thought of herself is finally in front of the camera. It is the story of her relationship with her body, shame, sexuality, culture, relationships, identity, and so much more. It is so beautiful. 

Earlier this year, she self published her first book. It is a massive luxury, fine art book, titled "Dear Love" featuring a decade of her work, as well as raw and vulnerable life stories. She opens up Intimately about her experience with childhood sexual abuse, and even interviews her father about his experience of being forced to leave his homeland of Palestine, and never really feeling at home anywhere else.

And of course as someone who relates to the experience of growing up in an Arab household, I really dig into asking about Sarah‘s relationship with her parents and how they feel about her work, and Sarah so graciously shares very openly. 

Honestly, this is such a loving final episode of the season and we don’t ever actually talk about it directly but this is also the first on-camera interview that I’ve ever done without my hair covered, so I just wanted to give an extra thank you to Sarah for holding that space because I honestly couldn’t imagine having this specific conversation in this way with anyone else. And in Sarah Bahbah style I’m even wearing a pink sweater that reads "emotional support sweater" so I’m feeling very comforted.

In this storytelling session we discuss: unlearning shame through art, going from numbing to feeling, reclaiming our cultures, the tricky relationship with parents not being supportive, peeling back the layers of love, and so much more. Sarah does not hold back and I really think you guys are going to enjoy this conversation. 

Welcome to the season two finale of Podcast Noor. 

Noor Tagouri (00:00:05):

Sarah, why are we laughing?

Sarah Bahbah (00:00:07):

I don't know. It's just nice to see you finally. I know.

Noor Tagouri (00:00:11):

So you're just talking about how I feel like this conversation is so overdue and also feels like really amazing timing and just divine timing because you're, not only are you going through such a incredible transformation to witness in that you have compiled so beautifully the last, it's over a decade of work.

Sarah Bahbah (00:00:36):

Yeah, it's a decade.

Noor Tagouri (00:00:37):

A decade, which is pretty remarkable, I think that I've been reflecting on the last decade of my life, and it's like the number 10 feels so tiny. But in terms of years and in this age period of your twenties and thirties, it's so transformational. I feel like I change every day. And so looking back at it and just honoring the last decade of your life and in the last decade, decade of your work, how do you feel being able to hug it and look at it in a book?

Sarah Bahbah (00:01:08):

It feels so therapeutic. It feels like I have my, it's, I'm honoring my twenties because 10 years ago was I turned 20 and then I turned 30 when I decided to make the book. And I really wanted to celebrate the journey that I've been on. I feel like coming from very intense childhood of filled with trauma and grief and loss and pain was, I feel like I had to mature really quickly to understand and survive my circumstances. And so I just wanted to honor that time period of my life in my twenties because I feel like it was momentous. And there's so many stories within the book that needed to be shared. So yeah, it was really a true celebration of existing and surviving and making it through, because I never thought I'd make it to my thirties if I'm being honest. So yeah, it's a real celebration.

Noor Tagouri (00:02:17):

I'm so happy that you're here.

Sarah Bahbah (00:02:19):

Thank you. Me too.

Noor Tagouri (00:02:21):

How is your heart feeling today?

Sarah Bahbah (00:02:24):

Good. If you asked me this yesterday, it would've been a different answer, but I think I just needed to sleep because last night I got home from my book signing and I was just feeling so emotional and over something that happened two years ago that it just came up out of the blue. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to cry about this right now. And it's like I had just repressed little parts of it

Noor Tagouri (00:02:49):

It's so intense when stuff like that happens

Sarah Bahbah (00:02:52):

Yeah

Noor Tagouri (00:02:52):

And you're just like, Ooh, that was still in my body.

Sarah Bahbah (00:02:54):

And I was like, why is this showing up for me right now? But I, I'm just going to, I literally just was staring at my knees and I was like, all right, we're just going to feel this. And then I just started crying and I just, but it was, so what I'm trying to do more of is just honor where I'm at, even if it doesn't feel good. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:03:15):

Well, do you feel like you're processing it after years of maybe a couple of years ago, you wouldn't have been able to physically process it in a way where you're going to feel it all the way through?

Sarah Bahbah (00:03:24):

Yeah,

Noor Tagouri (00:03:25):

It was ready. And I feel like especially after a book signing or after, you have this massive gathering of people who have been impacted by your work as if their light is giving you support to be able to

Sarah Bahbah (00:03:35):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I've been saying this with this book tour. It's been so incredible to see these rooms full of the people who are behind the likes on Instagram. And it's so different because if I got 300 likes on a post and that's all I got, I would be really confused and upset. But when you're in a room full of 300 people, it's so different. So different. And so I've just been sitting down with every single person and hearing how my work has impacted them. And it's, it's just like to try and absorb that has been so overwhelming and so sweet. But it's rocking me emotionally. I'm just like, ah, this is so much love. It's so wild.

Noor Tagouri (00:04:25):

But it's so incredible because 300 people as human beings is a lot, and it kind of forces you to recalibrate your relationship with numbers and social media because, especially when, for you, Instagram is a huge platform for storytelling for your work, but you're, the impact that you're making are on real human beings. So when you see people in real life, how does that allow you to recalibrate your relationship with how you use social media?

Sarah Bahbah (00:04:57):

It reminds me to not be harsh on myself if my engagement isn't high or whatever, because at the end of the day, I am such a loved and supported artist. And just because the numbers don't always reach the highs, it doesn't mean that that's taken away. And I do, especially because I feel like anytime I speak on being from Palestine or just share my opinion on anything regarding the occupation, I do feel like my numbers significantly drop, like 90% dip, even if the post before was extremely high. So

Noor Tagouri (00:05:36):

At that point, it's not even about thinking about the numbers around social media, it's actually just witnessing censorship

Sarah Bahbah (00:05:44):

And feeling the weight of my identity being silenced by a platform that I built my entire career on has been really painful for me because it's like they'll celebrate my art, but they won't celebrate my identity. And so I to, I really try and just be gentle with myself knowing that this is a long term thing to be able to discuss all of that. And as long as I can be welcomed into these rooms, that's when I can do the work. But Instagram is not on my side in that regard. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:06:21):

I mean, okay, so we were talking right before we pressed record and I stopped you. I was like, I want to double. So I had asked you if you'd ever visited Palestine and you were sharing that you hadn't, and you had actually interviewed your dad for the book. And I would love to just know, Hey, listen, we're aut of, and so we come from a very specific culture, and you do really daring work, very brave board, especially when it comes to just centering female stories and asking big questions around culture and tradition and why we do the things that we do and why we don't talk about certain things. And so I want to know how you approached interviewing your dad and just what your relationship with him has been like when it comes to how he engages with your work or what he knows about it.

Sarah Bahbah (00:07:14):

So my dad doesn't look at my work. I don't think he ever has. And he's okay with that. I'm okay with that. I would prefer it. Well, it's, he's not active on online, so he has no access to it, and he doesn't care to because he would rather just not know. All he cares about is that I'm safe and I am, I'm not disobeying him, whatever that means. And because my mom is very unsupportive of my work, she comes from a very Christian background and she uses that as a weapon to shame me constantly for the art that I create. And my dad is agnostic and doesn't really participate in religion. So he's always in the background being like, [khaleeha] let her, it's art, stop complaining, kind of thing. And so I have two conflicting sides with my parents. My mom, I unfortunately have had to sit down with her several times and be like, let's agree to disagree because we both come from two different generations, and the work that I'm doing is important, but I don't expect you to understand it because how could you don't live in the same world that I do.

(00:08:39):

I don't need you to understand it. I just need you to trust that I am doing the right thing. And that's always, it's always a battle because she is, she's just like, but sad, I want you to be in heaven with me. And he really goes in and even every single phone conversation we have, even if it's got nothing to do with my work, she'll always end it with, but are you behaving?

Noor Tagouri (00:09:06):

What does that mean?

Sarah Bahbah (00:09:06):

Are you doing God's work? Are you behaving? Are you behaving? That's literally, she says it in Arabic, but she's very, oh my gosh, I obviously, yeah, no, it's just different every time. But it's always centered around if I'm honoring God's words.

Noor Tagouri (00:09:27):

And what do you think that means to her?

Sarah Bahbah (00:09:30):

Well, for her it's fear because she really does want us to all be in heaven with her. Yeah, that's her ideology. That's her belief. She's like, I can't leave this earth unless they're coming with me. So, which is amazing and it's beautiful, but I'm just not there with her right now. I have my beliefs and yeah, it's tricky. But

Noor Tagouri (00:09:58):

When you first knew that you were going to become an artist and that this is the type of work that you wanted to take on, how did you get over that first threshold of being like, oh, this mama's not going to be okay with it?

Sarah Bahbah (00:10:12):

So my entire body of work has been an act of rebellion from my culture, but it represents so much more than that. It's also me reclaiming my body after the things that had happened to me as a child. And for the longest time, I blamed my culture for the things that happened to me. And so I was not truly embracing who I was and the people that I came from because it was built on so much shame. And so when I created” Sex and Takeout”, for instance, that was one of the more provocative series that I did and the wild ones, which is where I went to music festivals and I got really drunk, and I would photograph musicians and roll around in the dirt and take drugs for the first time and just be extremely rebellious and ev doing everything that my parents told me not to do because I didn't feel safe in my culture. So I needed to find a space where I did feel safe and where I could belong and where I could act on desire, but the differences that I'm out of and our culture just cannot accept that we behave in this way. And the western world was just pulling me in a different direction. They were like, come join us. And it was the evils and the wilderness, and I was like, yeah, that looks good. Let's go.

(00:11:51):

And so it was my way of just escaping the restrictions and the shame that was put on me and breaking free and my art became an outlet for that.

Noor Tagouri (00:12:06):

Is it also, as you were saying that I was like, huh? Is it also not just a reaction to the things that happened to you specifically in that regard? You are talking about different abuses, forms of abuse, but also a reaction to the fact that there was silence around that people wouldn't talk about it. Because I think sexual abuse happens in all cultures and communities, and it doesn't discriminate against anybody. Yeah. There is a way, and this is also a universal thing too, but there is this lack of response or accountability or just don't talk about it or blame or shame on the person that it's happened to. So I also want to just dig a little bit deeper and be like, is it just a reaction to someone being like, no, you can't do that. Or somebody being like, oh, that happened to you. No, we can't talk about it.

Sarah Bahbah (00:13:01):

It was a lot of things. I do feel like my voice was silenced as a kid. I didn't really have a voice. Anytime I did speak up, I was always told to be quiet, be submissive, be obedient. And so you leaning into my art to navigate being silenced really did help me build a voice for myself, the voice that I never had. And I was not just doing it for myself, but it was also for my inner child. And she so desperately needed to be heard, and it was really important for me to give her a voice in order for me to truly heal from the things that had happened to me. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:13:42):

So how did art find you?

Sarah Bahbah (00:13:46):

Oh, it just within me, it's always been there. It's always been an outlet. When I was a child, it was me introverting in a living room across from where all the uds were gathering, and I would just stare at the ceiling and build these playgrounds in my head that reimagined my entire world to be different and to feel different, to feel safe, and to feel colorful. I mean, no, that's colorful is not the right word because our culture is very colorful. But I was creating these playgrounds of safety in my brain, and that manifested into painting as a child and building paper mache planets and universes. And then in high school it was like fine art oil painting. And then it became photography, and now it's film. And I just feel like it's always different mediums. So it's a part of me, it's just how I process things.

Noor Tagouri (00:14:46):

That's so beautiful. And it's so clear. Your voice and your vision is so distinct, and it's so clear, and it's very beautiful how you have found yourself in so many mediums, but it's still you. So I want to take it back a little bit to what we were talking about earlier. So you have this response from your mom and from your dad, and when did you realize that? When did you make the decision that you were going to choose yourself and be like, you know what, even if you're not supportive or you're not engaging or you're not agreeing, I love you and I know that you love me and I have to do this.

Sarah Bahbah (00:15:34):

I don't think there was a specific moment. All I knew is that there was so much more to me that was so desperately dying to be heard. And if I had stayed at home in Perth in small town Perth, Australia, I would never be able to reach these voices and these experiences and these memories and my identity. It was just so swamped and covered by core beliefs that were built based on other people's opinions and of me and my family's conditioning and society's conditioning. And I just became such a shell of a human, and I really didn't feel like I was existing as my most authentic self. And I knew that there was a greater purpose for my existence, and I had to actively go and seek it. And the only way to do that was to leave and not be surrounded by my community and just completely isolate myself and build a world based on what I truly wanted to be in existent, I guess. And it was, it was challenging because leaving everything you've ever known is hard. And it's not that I resisted the people that I come from. I just resisted myself and I couldn't understand why I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. And so I had to go and find belonging, and that was the journey that I went on, and that's when I really leaned into my art to navigate all of that. So

Noor Tagouri (00:17:15):

What did you find in your journey of belonging?

Sarah Bahbah (00:17:20):

That it's okay. So I write this in my book as well, but I believe that we are born into this world as love, and we have all these layers that are, our core beliefs become these layers and layers, and they take us away from love and who we are. And so when I went on this journey, I was actively peeling every single layer of any time summer made me feel unworthy or someone made me feel like I didn't belong or someone invaded my private space. And I was just peeling all these layers and beliefs about myself one by one by one, until I could find my way back to love. And I wanted always exist in our pure, most pure self. And if we can exist as love, then we can access the divine. We can cultivate these beautiful, loving, reciprocated relationships. But when we're still layered with all these beliefs that aren't ours, we don't really truly exist as our authentic self because we're still acting

Noor Tagouri (00:18:31):

In reaction

Sarah Bahbah (00:18:32):

To these beliefs that we've created. I call it the negative ego. Positive ego is ego is a beautiful thing because it helps us make really great decisions, but it can also be a dangerous thing if you are acting constantly on the negative beliefs in the negative parts of your ego. So what I was trying to do is just peel it all off so I can exist purely as love.

AD BREAK - REP

Noor Tagouri (00:18:59):

Okay. So two definitions in this journey. Your book is called Dear Love, and you break it into sections in your own journey of love within yourself and how life from your inside out essentially. And so how do you define love today? And just because you talked about ego, I'd love to know how you define ego too, because that is, everybody has a different definition of that as well.

Sarah Bahbah (00:19:23):

So I think ego is mind, and love is heart, and both these things are a part of the human condition. They're built into us. We have a brain and we have a heart, and they're both extremely necessary to exist. So it's not that ego is bad, and it's not that love is the only infinite divine thing. I think what it means to be love and to be aware or self-aware of your mind is to just be aligned and act in with all your decisions that you make. You always center it around love. So if your mind has the thought, the love is the one that kind of nurtures it to its most authentic place. I don't know how else to explain it. I still am in the process of trying to totally understand that myself, the full complete alignment of mind, body, soul. Yeah. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:20:22):

Well, when compiling Dear Love. What did that journey of actually putting and piecing together the last decade of your work and your own personal evolution, what did that teach you about the concept of love and in society's relationship with it?

Sarah Bahbah (00:20:42):

I think what it has taught me is that self, like self-awareness and being aware of everything you've been through is the most important work that you have to do as a human in order to go back to love. And I think with social media right now, and it's like a double edged sword because on one side it's like there is so many conversations going on around self-work and therapy talk, and it's giving kids access to resources that they never had before, especially if they can't afford therapy. And it's teaching kids how to be a better person and how to go inwards in order to heal from your shit. But then it's also on the other side of it, it's telling kids to escape from themselves and using their phone as a vice to not face their reality and not face themselves. So I think with all of that, I think most people right now aren't doing the work because they're constantly distracting themselves, whether it's alcohol, partying, drugs, internet, whatever vices that they find. Escapism is still very much present in society and in every room that we walk into, people are constantly trying to escape themselves. And I think doing the work and going inwards is the way out of that and facing yourself and facing the things that hurt and allowing them to hurt that that's the work that needs to be done. And that's how you can reach love, pure love. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:22:34):

How did you do that?

Sarah Bahbah (00:22:37):

It was a process. It was a real process. So I was in that escapism world for a really long time. I numbed myself on Xanax, Xanax and Valium for three years before I moved to LA. And then when I got here, it was chaos. I was constantly, I couldn't be alone. I couldn't sit with myself. I was going out every single night trying to find a sense of safety and community attaching to these people who told me I was safe, but would just contradict that in every way. And it was just a constant state of fighting with myself, and I knew it wasn't sustainable. I knew I wouldn't be able to continue living if I was doing this to my body and avoiding what was going on in my mind. And so by the end of my first year in LA, I decided to completely rehab.

(00:23:42):

I took myself to the desert, and I also had bulimia at the time, and it just, everything was bad. It was like I was destroying my body any way I could, and I needed to change, otherwise I wouldn't make it another year. So I promised I wasn't going to purge again. I stopped taking Valium slowly and I stopped drinking in. By 2017, I was completely sober, and I started therapy, and I just completely went in. I went in and I went from feeling nothing and being numb for most of my life, to feeling everything all at once. And it goes from apathy to, I don't even a downpour of emotions. Numb, numb, numb, and then downpour, and then back to numb and then downpour. And I didn't know how to stabilize my emotions. And that's when I really needed my art to create a space to honor what was going on, to write it all down and go from there.

Noor Tagouri (00:24:51):

Thank you for sharing.

Sarah Bahbah (00:24:52):

Of course.

Noor Tagouri (00:24:54):

Tell me what goes into a Sarah Bahbah vision when the storyline, how you see it e, just even down to the colors and the words, how do you put together a vision? And if we can start from the inside, so you're in this moment of your art being the medium in which you can face your emotions out loud in real life, and then you create something that moves millions of people. How does that come together?

Sarah Bahbah (00:25:30):

It, it does start from within. So it's me trying to process a situation where I feel like my safety has been taken away from me and someone who is extremely, extremely anxious. I've convinced myself, I'm constantly in danger. And so whenever I feel the slightest bit of instability in my relationships, it triggers a wound so deep within me that feels like complete abandonment. And so my brain is just trying to pick up the pieces of how to feel safe again. And so what that means is re-imagining all of my scenarios in which I felt safe, and then how that safety quickly disappeared. And it's just like I go back to every single moment, and I imagine them in a hundred different ways. And while I'm doing that, all these subtitles come to be, and then

Noor Tagouri (00:26:33):

I love that they're subtitles.

Sarah Bahbah (00:26:36):

 They just pour out of me. I can write a

Noor Tagouri (00:26:39):

It's harder than writing many words.

Sarah Bahbah (00:26:42):

And also my advertising background taught me to sell things in one minute. So my brain just knows how to do that. One line can depict an entire experience, and I'm really good at it because I was trained in that way. I was trained to be a one line person, because that's what advertising teaches you. And so I would come up with a hundred of these, and it would be over a series of three to four months. And once I was ready to release it, I would then plan the visuals and I would plan the shoot, and I'd find my talent and everything kind of comes together after that. And then I release it to the world. And once I release it, I know that I fully processed this feeling of instability and wow, I fully allowed myself to accept where I'm at, and so I can give it to the world and it's no longer mine.

Noor Tagouri (00:27:37):

That's so beautiful.

Sarah Bahbah (00:27:38):

Thank you.

Noor Tagouri (00:27:40):

Tell me about just the aesthetic itself, the colors and just the glamor and the subtitles, and I just colors the colors, the colors, the colors. How did that come to be? How did you find a way to make that part of the voice?

Sarah Bahbah (00:28:01):

So when I was younger, when I first started photography, I would shoot on film, and I realized because I was going to these festivals every single week and I wasn't getting paid to shoot them, I couldn't afford to process film anymore. So I wanted to make my photos look like film, but they were digital. And so from a really, really young age and the very, very start of my career, I was already manipulating colors in my photos to capture the essence of what it felt like to be in that moment. And I grew up in Perth, and so it's always sunny, and the sunsets are the most beautiful ones you'll ever see. And I really wanted to encapsulate that in my work and really feed on the nostalgia of being at a festival as the sun is setting and everyone's cheering and out of their minds and dancing around and just your favorite band in the background. And so color became a huge part of the work. And in terms of indulgence, I focus on that a lot in my sets because I also want to bring in my identity as an Arab. And what that means is reflect it. It's covering the table with food and celebrating self and love through community and indulgence in the meals that we have in the meals that we share. And so I always capture my protagonist surrounded by a buffet of food because that really reflects how I grew up

Noor Tagouri (00:29:41):

It's so beautiful. And that's also so the way I see it too, and I know we started this conversation and it was just kind of unpacking some of the harm that comes within culture and tradition that we don't really rethink sometimes, but you've also managed to reclaim your culture and to still maintain it as a part of who you are and your essence. So what was that process like and how do you continue to do that?

Sarah Bahbah (00:30:13):

So it was a lot of unlearning, I think growing up in Australia and having been bullied by so many white kids saying that I was a dirty Arab, and post 9/11 I was a terrorist, and whatever shit they could come up with, even in Australia, even in, oh, a hundred percent in Australia, Australians are so fucking racist. It's wild, but not all of them. But you had that experience. I had that experience, and they became a part of my core beliefs. And so I had internalized racism around my own identity, and I had to unlearn all of that. And the most beautiful takeaway from this journey that I've been on is that we do come from resilient, loud, loving, caring, chaotic people, and it is so worthy of celebration. And there is so much racism and xenophobia around us as Arabs, and it's, it's truly such a mess. It's like we are not any of those things that the media portrays us as. And I knew that, I always knew that, and I love the people that I come from, but there was a disconnect because of the things that were happening to me behind closed doors and at school. And so as a child, my beliefs became that we were wrong and we were inherently bad. And that's not true at all.

Noor Tagouri (00:31:38):

That process of unlearning is a forever journey too, because it's, again, so much of culture and how we engage in it today is in response to how people have treated us or how we've been perceived. And we were talking with a friend earlier this morning about how in, for example, my family is from Libya, and Gaddafi was in power, and there were students who were hung in the University Square for praying morning prayers. And so there are people who really leaned into religion, even my dad included, and they were holding onto it because it's the, it's almost a form of rebellion to hold onto your faith in response to somebody who's killing people for it. And then on the other side of my friend who we were talking to this morning, she's Iranian, and her parents fled or she, she up here, and they left in response to the religion becoming this politicized and used as a weapon to press people there.

(00:32:48):

And it's like everyone responds in reaction to, and it, it's so difficult because this is part of that journey of figuring out who am I really? Because so much, especially from our cultures, so much of our identity is, or so much of our life is spent trying to figure out who we actually are, because so much of who we've been has been in response. And so I think that art is such a beautiful way to unpack that and release it. And you've done such an amazing job. And when you released 3ab, which is just one of the most profound and powerful projects, the first one you ever did, featuring yourself.

Sarah Bahbah (00:33:35):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:33:37):

I mean, I would love to know now that it's been out for two years.

Sarah Bahbah (00:33:41):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:33:44):

How do you reflect on that experience? I had meaning literally shame in Arabic. And it's funny because you know, come from a Palestinian Christian background and my family is Muslim and it's, I don't know the little girl in me who grew up only around very conservative Christian White people. The first time I met a person who wasn't Muslim, I didn't even know this is

(00:34:09):

My brain.

(00:34:10):

So to even see you create this body at work, it's title and feel so familiar, and the lines feel so true, and also your mom is referring to God in a very similar way that my own family does. And so there's this similar,

Sarah Bahbah (00:34:27):

I think there is so many similarities between Islam and Christianity course, but also from the Middle East. So my mom, she's very much no different to probably your parents, literally no different.

Noor Tagouri (00:34:42):

So I, tell me about that project from the saw of today. Who compiled Dear Love?

Sarah Bahbah (00:34:54):

Yeah. So it was created during the pandemic, and it was very much created when I was in the process of peeling off the layers. And I made the series because I wanted to challenge myself to open the Pandora box of why I didn't feel like I was worthy to be in front of the camera. And is that how you felt? Yeah, I did. I felt that way. I felt it tremendously. And my friend Steven, I was on his podcast, Steven Butler, and he said to me, of all the people that I know, you are not one to doubt your abilities, but you're one to doubt the way you look. And he's like, go inwards and figure out why that is. And so, yeah, it set me on this journey. And yeah, it came down to the memories that I had repressed around my identity, and also the conditioning from having grown up in Australia and only seeing white beauty being celebrated, not seeing a single Arab on tv, even an Arab woman on till this day on TV doesn't really, in Western world doesn't exist. It's not, there isn't many of us. And that's the work that I'm doing next, but we'll get into it later. But for the longest time, I was hiding behind a veil of blue contacts, avoiding the sun, straightening my hair to contacts. Yeah, yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:36:33):

I came back from Libya

Sarah Bahbah (00:36:34):

Yeah

Noor Tagouri (00:36:35):

They gave them to me there

Sarah Bahbah (00:36:35):

Oh my goodness.

Noor Tagouri (00:36:38):

My cousin had just worn them for her wedding.

Sarah Bahbah (00:36:40):

Yeah

Noor Tagouri (00:36:41):

I remember thinking, oh, I'm going to wear blue contacts for my wedding.

Sarah Bahbah (00:36:43):

It's so funny because I haven't thought of this since, but whenever my sister went to Jordan, she would come back with different contacts. Yeah, yeah. It's it, yeah. So we're just constantly being told that we are not going to be accepted as the way we look, and we have to aite our physical appearance to cater to white beauty standards. And I was dying my hair. I was starving myself. I wasn't letting my Arab curves kick in, and everything I was doing to my body was to resist my identity. And it was because of the things that I believed about myself. And it's because I didn't feel like I could exist as myself in any space without being ostracized or othered. And so I had to unlearn all that, and that was the true core reasons why I wasn't able to put myself in front of the camera or truly celebrate my identity.

(00:37:47):

And so “AEib” was a marker of that. It was to fight against these western standards of beauty that I had succumbed to. And it was also to fight against my culture for shaming me for existing as a woman. And it, it's like, because I come from the western world, but I grew up out through and through, and this herb is the marker of the third. My friend, she says like, you've got to come into your third and hold. It means you are both arab and Western, and you've got to create. Oh, right, yeah. Wow. And so she's amazing, incredible artist. And I adore her, is her name. She's from Saudi, but she lives in LA. Anyway, shout out. But yeah, so she said that to me and I was like, okay, what does my third look like? And yeah, it looks like me honoring the people that I come from whilst also honoring my sexuality and celebrating my beauty as an other woman and creating space for that, and hopefully encouraging others to do the same without shame or guilt.

Noor Tagouri (00:39:02):

I mean, it looked like a spiritual experience.

Sarah Bahbah (00:39:03):

Experience. It was. It was a total, it was a journey. Usually I released my series right after shooting them, but there were two series that took a really long time to get to a place of being like, okay, we're doing this. The first was, I could not protect her because that was the first time I spoke about my child's sexual abuse and that needed time and nurturing. And then it was, 3ib, because I wanted to check in with my community and make sure that I wasn't going to be expelled from ever going, being allowed into the Middle East again.

Noor Tagouri (00:39:35):

And what was the response to it?

Sarah Bahbah (00:39:37):

Everyone's like, Sarah, you have to absolutely do this. This is profound. We need this. Go for it. And I was like, okay. But then there was a small percentage of extremists who would leave nasty comments. I mean, as always. Yeah, I got one the other day, it was first class horror. I was like, that's that's actually really funny. Yeah.

AD BREAK - AYS

Noor Tagouri (00:40:02):

Are there any women in your family who engaged with “3eib”?

Sarah Bahbah (00:40:06):

Yeah, all of my cousins and my siblings celebrated it. My mom might have seen it. It's still a little undecided. She did go on my Instagram at the end of 2020 somehow, and she sprung me with likes. I saw your Instagram and it was like. I dunno what she saw, but she saw something and she didn't speak to me for a month, but she's going to not tell me what she saw. She's going to just be ignorant because it's less painful for her to process that her child has gone astray from God in her eyes.

Noor Tagouri (00:40:45):

But what does that mean to her? Do you think? Specifically, is it about the body itself or is it about the things that you're saying? What do you think that that actually is?

Sarah Bahbah (00:40:57):

I think it's, it honestly is it's f she just could never understand these things. She never celebrated her human desires in that way. She played by the book in every single aspect of her life. And so for me, when she sees me in the work that I do, it's so foreign to her that it seems like I have true, and through it's, she feels like I am a danger to everything she's fought so hard against.

Noor Tagouri (00:41:31):

But I guess the reason I'm asking is also just because I'm curious how that is for her as a Christian woman compared to in the Muslim community, covering your bodies a huge part of the traditions that people engage in today. So is that similar for her?

Sarah Bahbah (00:41:54):

Yeah. My mom once would prefer I covered my body. Not, it's just different. It's different, but it's the same. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand. It is the same, but just have different Islam. They have different practices of covering your body. And for women, obviously it's their choice and it's really beautiful. But for my mom, she would just prefer that we, because she dresses so modestly as well, and when they pray they cover their hair. She's very, very traditional. Yeah. They wear a, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a cloth over their hair. And women aren't in, I think she's orthodox Christian, but they, it's, it's written in the Bible that women should have their hair covered in the church. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:42:50):

It's so interesting that your dad is agnostic and that your mom is Christian and that the conversation around faith and belief is, I don't know, different. Did that conversation ever come up for you, for your dad? Is it go engage in your own spiritual journey, or was there more pressure for you to be Christian?

Sarah Bahbah (00:43:13):

Oh, it's been different over the years. There isn't, because there was a point where my dad wouldn't let my mom get baptized, for instance. And all my mom wanted was to be baptized so she could take the bread and wine at church.

Noor Tagouri (00:43:28):

I thought that was something that happened when they were younger,

Sarah Bahbah (00:43:32):

Not in their, their traditions.

Noor Tagouri (00:43:39):

And what was his, why?

Sarah Bahbah (00:43:40):

It was because he didn't, the way that my pastor was not allowing my mom to do it, and it was, he was trying to protect her out of ego because he didn't like that my mom wasn't being welcomed unless she did the thing that he said she had to do. And so it was out of protection. But eventually he came around, but he's never, he'll go to Catholic churches for kids baptisms and stuff, but he doesn't practice religion, I don't think. Don't believe he prays. Can you talk to him about it? Sometimes? I haven't recently. I haven't in the past few years. But yeah, he's just to, he believes as a God, and that's just, that's kind of where he is at. Cool. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:44:39):

Oh, wow. This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing all that.

Sarah Bahbah (00:44:41)

Of course.

Noor Tagouri (00:44:45):

I want to talk about your choice to self-publish 

Sarah Bahbah (00:44:50):

Okay.

Noor Tagouri (00:44:51):

And just one of the things that I really admire about you and your work is that you're often using a sliding scale so that your work can be accessible so that people can't typically afford the retail price of a fine art book can afford it, or your print or whatever. It just feels so in service to the community. And in a way, your choice to self-published a almost 500 page fine art photography book with beautiful words. Walk me through the decision and were you nervous?

Sarah Bahbah (00:45:32):

So I was planning to always publish a book. It was always in the back of my mind as I was building the body of work, and I was in New York in 2017, I was approached by these agents who pitch your books to publishers, and we were just getting really bad deals. And I was like, I think my work is worth more than this. And then are they

Noor Tagouri (00:45:58):

Bad deals that you felt like they were bad deals for you? Or generally you're just like, wait, this structure does not do

Sarah Bahbah (00:46:04):

I think the structure doesn't favor the artist, but now I'm kind of understanding being the publisher now, I'm like, oh, there is a lot of cost and it makes sense that they would do that. They would give you an advance and then pay you the royalties, which is, I think 10% or 5% low. It's low, but every deal is different. So I can't speak to that, but I just didn't, these offers that were coming through. And then I met with a really, really big publishing house, and they were saying the same thing. It's like, well, you actually have to pay for it, and then we'll do everything else. And then it was just backwards and I was like, eh, I don't like any of this. And they were also trying to dictate what the book would be. And I had such a clear vision for it that I didn't really, it didn't really make sense for me. And I wanted to, I've worked so hard to be an independent artist. I left my galleries many years ago. We won't get into that, but just

Noor Tagouri (00:47:13):

Well I think it's a big decision.

Sarah Bahbah (00:47:14):

They don't put the artist first, let's just say that. And they go behind your back.

Noor Tagouri (00:47:18):

Many agencies. We left an agency years ago when we started our own thing. That's why I feel like I can see, and I can feel and taste the freedom almost that you have.

Sarah Bahbah (00:47:28):

Yeah, that's incredibly challenging. Yeah. I mean, it's easy at all, but it's, it's definitely not easy because you have to literally work every single hour of the day to make sure that you are getting everything, every single thing done that people have teams for. But it's just in 2000 and at the end of 2017, I left all these galleries, and by 2018, I released my first limited edition print. And instead of the works being sold for thousands of dollars, I wanted to democratize my art and make it more accessible. So we did a print that was like $200. And then by the pandemic, I did this sliding scale where it's like you can pay $50 or up to 300. And honestly, the in old institutions do not support it because it goes against everything that they've worked to control artists. And I just, I want to keep pushing against the grain because I believe that it also makes me feel like I could do anything knowing that I could publish a book or sell 25,000 prints or whatever.

(00:48:40):

It's like, I did that. Yeah, you did. No one else did that. I did that, and that feels really fucking good to own. So when the book came around, I had a choice. I was like, do I want to start pitching this again and going to all these publishers, or do I want to leverage the audience that I have and knowing that they support my work and knowing that I can price it so it's still accessible. Because if I went with a publisher, they would sell this book for minimum 300. I already know that, and I would only get $10 from it. So it's bonkers. Yeah, it's bonkers. So that's what I did. I spent every single hour last year, 1216 hour days working on this book and project, managing it, making sure through and through the process was clear and green lit. I had a beautiful team of editors.

(00:49:37):

I had a graphic designer. I had legal, make sure all the talent was cleared, and it was just all the art was cleared, and it was a process. And then going back and forth with the printers on the cover and the quality of the book and the size, and how much are you going to order, how many books do you think you can sell? And not knowing what number, because obviously the more books you order, the more the lower the cost is. And I, I'm like, okay, I had to weigh out the margins, but then there's also a recession and people aren't buying things right now. So it's like, what do I do? And it was just so many questions that I had to answer myself. I didn't have a team for this. That's what it means to you are the bus. You literally have to make every single decision. And I loved it, but it destroyed me at the same time because it was so hard. It was really, really hard. And I burnt myself out a million times through.

Noor Tagouri (00:50:38):

How did you prepare?

Sarah Bahbah (00:50:40):

It was, honestly, there was moments even this year where I'm like, I need to just disappear for a month and not speak to anyone because I'm so exhausted. But I pushed through, I just, I started to be more gentle on myself. I think it was once the book finally was out, it didn't end. I had to also do customer service while I found a customer service team. And this is for, at the time, it was like 6,000 orders saying

Noor Tagouri (00:51:08):

All of these things that I never would've thought about.

Sarah Bahbah (00:51:11):

Yeah, tell about that. I was literally replying to customers every day. A hundred customers would email every single day, hundreds of customers. And I'm literally sitting behind the computer trying to respond to them while being like, okay, to my shipping team, what's like, what's the update? And then getting a fulfillment company is also another thing. And then working out what that looks like, working out what your packaging looks like. And there's so many things. Yeah, it doesn't end. It literally doesn't end. And so now I'm on book tour mode and everything is finally in place. I have amazing packaging. It's not going to damage the books. And we're shipping daily and everything's, it was the longest teething process of my life, but now everything is settled, and now I have to look at distribution and how I can actually get my book into bookstores, because unless you're with a distribution company, they don't want your book.

Noor Tagouri (00:52:07):

Wait, really?

Sarah Bahbah (00:52:08):

Yes. Barnes and Nobles literally got back to me yesterday, and they're like, we only accept self-published books if you distribute within these companies. And they gave me a long list, and I was like, okay. And so I look into distribution, distribution is 70% to the distributor, 30% to the artists, and they sell your book for half the price. So I'm like, do I even want distribution or should I just go hard on selling my book online and focusing all my energy on literally just getting people to buy the book through Instagram ads and whatever. I mean,

Noor Tagouri (00:52:45):

It's hard though too, because it's bookstores. You're getting people who've never heard of you before.

Sarah Bahbah (00:52:51):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:52:51):

I mean, you're really breaking a model though. I have a lot of questions, not once that can be answered, but just things that, it seems like you found a lot of holes in the system, and this is only your first book. I know that you're going, this is not your last.

Sarah Bahbah (00:53:06):

Maybe it will be, maybe it will. I don't know. It's 10 years of work. So

Noor Tagouri (00:53:12):

I, I feel like that route has been such a service to other artists to say, I mean, listen, it's hard work, but it's something is possible. And

Sarah Bahbah (00:53:21):

Yeah. But I will say that if I didn't have my audience, this book would not be successful. Exactly. But I also cultivated this audience over 10 years, and I have built such a strong community of supporters that I love and adore. And that's why this book tour is so important because I really want to thank them. I want to be there. I want to literally say thank you because they made it happen. Totally.

Noor Tagouri (00:53:46):

Who are they? Who is their audience? And I love seeing their faces at your events, and they're coming through and they're so emotional and feel so attached to your work.

Sarah Bahbah (00:53:56):

I think very loving, caring, very gentle people. I haven't met anyone who's just been unkind. It's just like everyone is so open. And I think the people who follow my work and support my work are on the same path of going inwards and leaning into vulnerability to truly express themselves to their partners and in their life. I think we all connect because we all want to be seen, and we all want to have a voice, especially in our relationships around love. And yeah, it's just been so beautiful to have people share their stories with me and how my art has directly helped them heal from a breakup. And that's the most common thing. Hearing your art has helped me heal from my breakup, or I literally use your art to break up with my ex, and it's just no pressure. Amazing. It's so beautiful because by me giving the chaos in my brain like a space, it helps others also do the same. And so by me doing the work, it's helping others do the work. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. I like that. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:55:12):

That's the radical thing, is when you actually engage with your own story and you create the space in your life for you to engage with it, there is no, this is why this idea of trying to change people is such a far If you Can't change people, you normally change yourself. You also have to trust that in changing and evolving yourself, you are also going, you're showing people how to do that for themselves, and that's the impact that you make.

Sarah Bahbah (00:55:41):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (00:55:43):

Okay. I know this is funny because it was one of the first questions I asked, and then I realized you interviewed your dad.

Sarah Bahbah (00:55:51):

Yes.

Noor Tagouri (00:55:52):

Tell me

Sarah Bahbah (00:55:52):

About that. Okay. So yeah, we didn't answer that question. That's perfect. Having the

Noor Tagouri (00:55:58):

Conversations as a little, we talk about it and then we go into art and then we talk about it, we go and it feels good.

Sarah Bahbah (00:56:05):

Yeah. So I interviewed my dad for the book because I wanted to understand where he was at with the occupation in Palestine. I also wanted to understand his history more because he's never been able to openly talk about it. And we've never set intentional time to talk about it. So I had my best friend, Baha, who interviewed them at the house because she was also one of the editors on my book, my parents. So she went to Perth, she lives in Perth, and she interviewed them. And I was on the Zoom call. Whoa. In Istanbul before a wedding. So it was like, I didn't expect, huh? Yeah, I didn't know where it was going to go, but I ended up sobbing because hearing my dad speak of the occupation, because he was born in 1949 and Nakba was 1948. And in 1948, it was very different than when he was born.

(00:57:09):

1948, my grandpa and his dad had an very large orchard farm, orchid farm, how do you say it? Orchard? Orchard. Orchard, yeah. He had a large orchard farm. It had olives and oranges, and they were harvesting, and naba happened. And literally within the same week, the Israeli occupation force came to their land and they tried to buy it. At first they like, can we buy it off you? And my granddad was like, no, this is ours. And the next day, the very next day, they came and they burnt it to the ground. They bulldozed it, and they displaced my dad's family from their home. And they got sent to Taber in Ramal. And then my dad was born the following year in a basement. And in order for my dad's family to stay in Palestine, my granddad had to work for the occupation force. And he made the horse shoes and he also made wine.

(00:58:18):

And there was one other thing, soap or something. But you didn't know this before your dad shoes? No, I didn't know. And because he never spoke about it. And how was he during the interview? He was just, he's very calm, but he was like, you could see, he was like, it's hard for him. And then after five years in Ramallah, they were displaced and they went to Jordan and then they went to Qatar. So that was my dad's journey out of Palestine. And then for my grandma, she was born in Yaffa. And Sorry, this is your grandfather's wife? No, my other, oh, both my grandmas were born in Yaffa, actually. But my grandma was married off to a Jordanian man in Irbid Jordan at 13. So they could leave, and her whole family weren't allowed to come except her dad and her dad's brother. So that was their way out, out.

(00:59:29):

And then everyone else stayed in Palestine and eventually moved to Gaza or were moved to Gaza, I should say. And a lot of them are still over there if they're alive. Yeah. So that's kind of their story. And when I asked my dad, why can't he doesn't want to go back, that's what broke my heart because it was the first time I really felt him speak on how he felt. He doesn't have a home and he doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere because the home that he knows isn't the same anymore. And he also had a bit of adversity around being Christian and Qatar and being ostracized by his Muslim peers and not accepted at school. And even though he was the best in the class, he was never honored because of his religion. And then he comes to Australia and he doesn't understand the curriculum because it's not in Arabic.

(01:00:26):

So he just never really felt he had a home. It was always taken away, or he was never accepted. And that broke my heart. I couldn't even fathom because I always felt his grief as a child. I'm extremely empathetic and I felt his sadness continuously. And because he would sit in silence and blast upper music and it would be 11 in the morning and the house, he'd put speakers in every room, and he is just sitting there wiggling his feet, just eyes closed. And that's his way of feeling. And he's done that ever since I was a kid. But it was always so sad for me to see that because it was Simon and Garfunkel sound of silence kind of thing. And oh, Andre Pelli, real emotional, emotional. So yeah, I finally understood the grief he was carrying. It wasn't just the material things that I thought it was of having lost everything Once he came to Australia, it was just a lineage of trauma. And so it's hard for him, but I think I've convinced him to go back. So we're going to potentially go soon. Do you mean convinced him to go to Palestine? Because I wanted to go with them.

AD BREAK - ISEEYOUFOUNDATION

Noor Tagouri (01:01:49):

So I was ask next is, so how does that impact your decision to go and how do you feel about going?

Sarah Bahbah (01:01:57):

I feel honestly, it's avoiding it because I can hardly process the things that I see online, and I just don't even know how I'm going to cope. I think it's going to destroy me in ways that I'm not prepared for because I already spiral if I think too much about it. But I am also mentally preparing because I know there is so much beauty to be seen, and I want to go to Jerusalem. I want to spend time in so many young buzzing creatives. I want to eat all our food. And I got to find, make sure that before I go, I am so mentally grounded and stable because I struggle so much with mental illness that I, I'm just worried it's going to, yeah, it's going to shock me in ways that I,

Noor Tagouri (01:02:48):

But I also wonder if I feel like a trip there for you, especially, it's kind of a pilgrimage. It's like you connecting to a bigger part of yourself that you've never met. And so I wonder if also you'd be carried by your ancestors and surrounded by people. I always feel this way when I go to out countries, even when I'm not from there. And there's like this sun, there's this lightness. Cause there's a familiarity. And I'm like, I can't believe I'm hearing the language that my family speaks like everyone. And when I speak it, it's very broken, but I want to, and I, there's just like this desire. So I wonder if, wonder if that'll come through for you and just you'll, I feel like especially you and especially as an artist and it's a part of your story, that you're be so carried and have to just trust that all the work you've done,

Noor Tagouri (01:03:44):

It's not even about mentally preparing for now until you leave. It's like you've been doing it since you were trial.

Sarah Bahbah (01:03:50):

Yeah. You've been

Noor Tagouri (01:03:51):

Preparing for this morning.

Sarah Bahbah (01:03:53):

Yeah. I believe that. And I know I have so many homes that I'll be welcomed into and I know I'll be celebrated and loved and adored. I just don't think there is a lot of anger. I'm carrying my family's anger. I'm carrying our people's anger, and I, I'm just scared. Of course. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (01:04:16):

Wow. Well, I honor your journey, your feelings.

Sarah Bahbah (01:04:19):

Thank you. Thank you.

Noor Tagouri (01:04:22):

I love it for you so much and I hope that whenever it happens.

Sarah Bahbah (01:04:28):

Thank you. Thanks, faith.

Noor Tagouri (01:04:32):

So what's the question that you're currently asking these days?

Sarah Bahbah (01:04:39):

I d Yeah, I know this is one of your questions. I just never, I didn't prepare for it. Let me think

Noor Tagouri (01:04:48):

We can sit in silence until one comes to you.

Sarah Bahbah (01:04:50):

Okay.

(01:04:55):

I mean, I am in a phase of truly trying to embody, and I'm asking myself, what exactly does that look like? Because it's something I practice and it's something I preach a lot. Love is self-acceptance and accepting yourself in all of your and as whole, no matter how damaged or broken you feel, you have to honor that. And so I guess, yeah, I'm constantly asking myself, what does true self-acceptance look like? And how do I integrate that into my daily practice? And so that means when I'm feeling anxious or when I'm feeling groggy or exhausted, how do I just it and celebrate that? Celebrate it as much as I celebrate feelings of joy and excitement. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (01:05:55):

I forgot where I learned this from, but it's been a really helpful practice for even what you're saying. And it was like, because language obviously is a huge part of that. In the words that we used to define our feelings or whatever, it's for new Brown has atlas at the heart. That speaks to a lot of different emotions that we can talk about. But instead of saying, I feel sad, I've started saying, oh, sadness is present instead of making it, I am this feeling. It's just the feeling has shown up. And I wish I remembered where I learned this from, but when I started doing that, it was such a, I don't know, it was an unlock in my brain. Cause I began to exist as a witness to what was

Sarah Bahbah (01:06:37):

Happening then A victim of it. I love that. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (01:06:41):

She was feeling as present right now, anxiety's present right now. Well, I'm not anxiety, but how do we kind of look at it from afar?

Sarah Bahbah (01:06:50):

Yeah. That's so beautiful. And that's definitely something that I've tried to practice. Often I feel like emotions are visitors and they just attach to you and you're like, oh, hey, what are you doing? Next series. Yeah. And they just want to be cuddled and heard and so they can leave. And that's really what emissions are. Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (01:07:16):

So the way this conversation has been great. I could talk to you for hours

(01:07:20):

 Truly

(01:07:23): 

The way we wrap our conversations is a fill in the blank. The prompt is if you really knew me, you would know and you can share. Can you say the whole Yeah, yeah. I'll do the whole thing. Yeah. Okay. So we wrap our conversations by a prompt. And the prompt is, if you really knew me, you would know and you can share one, two, or three things.

Sarah Bahbah (01:08:00):

Okay.

(01:08:03):

All right. You already shared it. No, no, no. That's so much. Okay. If you really knew me, you would know. I am an extremely introverted person, and it's really hard for me to connect with people and feel like authentic connection. And I practice openness so much, and when I'm in a room full of strangers, I shut down completely. And it's really hard for me to stay open. So yeah, number one, I'm an introvert. Number two. Oh, number two. Oh my God, this is so hard. Can I think of anything else? I don't know. I'm a really good cook. My friends are obsessed with this. I call it the famous spicy vodka sauce now, because everyone is just like, when are you making it next? Yes. So I've started doing these annual gatherings at my house where it's long fold out tables with checkered red table cloths. And I have 60 friends come over and I just make a huge batch and I feed everyone and we have wine, and it's just a true celebration of this pasta. That's amazing. And so I do that once a year and yeah, I guess if you really knew me, you would know how good that pasta tastes. And then the third thing is, if you really knew me, you would know I curate playlist a lot.

Noor Tagouri (01:09:52):

Your birthday Playlist When you shared it, you were a birthday Spotify playlist last year. Literally it was it last year or maybe year before. Anyway, I downloaded it and I listened to it for I love it so much. I didn't skip a single song.

Sarah Bahbah (01:10:06):

Really? Oh, it's because we're from the same generation. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So I would say, I think anyone who is in my life knows that I am really good at curating experiences. And so a lot of what you see in my art manifest into my personal life as well. And so if I have a dinner, it's going to look beautiful. If I have a castle party with 30 of my friends, or tw, I think I had 20, that was the playlist. 22 people there, I'm going to take you on a journey and there's going to be so many thoughtful, intentional activities throughout the entire weekend. And I just love curating spaces. I like to make my art come to life in so many ways, and only my friends get to experience it. And that's really fun for me.

Noor Tagouri (01:11:01):

You created the world that you wanted to live in.

Sarah Bahbah (01:11:04):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (01:11:06):

That's a really beautiful thing.

Sarah Bahbah (01:11:06):

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This has been so beautiful. Yeah, you're amazing.

OUTRO:

PODCAST NOOR IS AN AYS PRODUCTION.

PRODUCERS INCLUDE, MYSELF, ADAM KHAFIF, AND SARAH ESSA.

EDITING BY NORAN MORSI.

THEME MUSIC IS THE SONG “THUNDERDOME, WELCOME TO AMERICA” BY PORTUGAL THE MAN.

EXTRA GRATITUDE AND THANKS TO OUR STORYTELLER SARAH BAHBAH.
BE SURE TO GET A COPY OF HER BOOK "DEAR LOVE."

ALSO, THANK YOU TO CITIZENM HOTEL FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL MOBILE STUDIO THAT WE’VE USED PRETTY FREQUENTLY THROUGHOUT THIS SEASON.

AS ALWAYS, AT YOUR SERVICE.