N.Y.F.WA is a curatorial project co-curated by University of Southern California, MA in curatorial studies graduate Loujain Bager and Los Angeles based artist, Zeina Baltagi. The project centers around WhatsApp as a digital platform that allows for global communication. Not Your Family WhatsApp explores the connectivity of the platform and the way we communicate in the diaspora. We are interested in the circulated stills, audio and moving images, commonly sent in WhatsApp Group Messages. Inspired by how our families interact with each other and the aesthetics of the images, videos, and voice notes, sent to one another. This project is a multi-layered exhibition including: a virtual discussion series, a virtual exhibition and a public window display visible from the street at Coaxial Arts Foundation’s Downtown Los Angeles location.
Loujain Bager is an art historian, artist, and curator based in Los Angeles, California. She recently graduated with her masters Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California, where she is completing her graduate thesis on contemporary artists in Saudi Arabia.
Bager currently works as an artist assistant at Sherin Guirguis Studio and has worked as a curatorial assistant at Leiminspace, a curatorial intern at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, and an intern in education at the California African American Museum (CAAM). In her free time, she is a member of SWANA-LA, a collective dedicated to advocating for the Southwest Asian & North Afrikan community on a local and global scale. She received her BA in Art History with a minor in art from Florida International University.
Zeina Baltagi is an artist and educator, raised between California and Lebanon. Their work reveals intimate transformations in relation to lived experiences with physical, emotional, economic and cultural mobility.
Baltagi hold a B.A. from California State University, Northridge, and an M.F.A. degree from University California, Davis. Baltagi has exhibited their work with; Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Basement Gallery, LADOT, Union Station, Los Angeles Road Concerts, PØST, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, bG gallery and Klowden Mann. As well as numerous University galleries including; University of Southern California, Claremont Graduate University, California Lutheran University and California State University, Northridge.
N.Y.F.WA. is supported by Coaxial Arts Foundation